Which african country is the author from?
We are not from Africa, we're from Ukraine.
Just ask yourselves - "Who with their right mind would pay 8% fee for WU/MG instead of 1% paypal fee?" Not only. Paypal has a "gift" option that cannot be reversed. If you use escrow it's the most convenient way.
Paypal is not common here and it can be reversed no matter what, even long time after the payment was made. Western Union/MoneyGram allow you to have cash directly. If you want to have cash with Paypal it is certainly not going to cost you only 1%.
Why have you stated that high MG fee? I've received amounts up to $2k+ with MG and the fee the sender had to pay has always been around $20.
These are the MoneyGram and Western Union fees in our country, a few years ago the fees were extremely low but they've changed suddenly. Although, I have checked the fees to send from other countries and we do not have the most expensive ones. I agree though that they charge abusive fees.