That's an odd comparison between literacy rate and add math. Malaysia has a literacy rate of 96% btw.

I had a Libyan university dorm mate. To me, gaddafi basically just sounds like the sultan of brunei. They provided a lot of benefits to the people from oil revenue (including overseas scholarships which my friend was on).

But at the same time, things are not super rosy, as you can expect. Leaders are super rich but not necessarily the people. No comments on harems and torture chambers, but don't imagine that gaddafi and his close family and friends didn't skim a lot of the revenue for themselves.

Thing is gaddafi himself wasn't really peaceful. Aside from being anti West, what people kinda ignore was that he also waged war against his neighbours Egypt and Sudan. In terms of development libya there really wasn't much - libya was similar to other Arab kingdoms heavily reliant on oil (libya is actually a bit worse off because they actually nationalised businesses which drove away private businessmen).

The irony is that gaddafi took power because the former king controlled all the oil revenue, and he ended up controlling all the oil revenue himself.

gaddafi wanted to, but libya itself was quite far from being self sufficient in food.

but essentially it remained an oil country. when oil prices were up, it got rich. when oil prices went down, the gdp went down. its basically just a different type of oil sultanate.

its a problem of institutions. they dont have the institutions and traditions that are compatible with democratic forms of government (which isnt to say it cant be learned).

without these institutions, people tend to rely on tribalism, ethnic politics, and patronage (e.g. politicians directly handing out aid instead of a government agency that is supposed to be party-neutral). you can either push for reform and strengthen the institutions, or you fall back to dictatorship and never develop them.