Compared to 3rd world poverty even very severe banking and debt problems are nothing. Do you think people in, say, Greece 5 or 10 years from now will think their lives are no better than the average person living in, say, Malawi or Zambia?
There might be some few good cases but the greater part of history just serves my pessimistic view. All the empires claimed to help less developed nations to become "better". Only for some strange reason the latter didn't want this help until persuaded with military force.