Hollywood hunk Ben Affleck is once again spending time in an unglamorous African nation to call attention to the suffering of its people.

Affleck is on his fourth trip to war-torn eastern Congo -- where at least 250,000 people have been displaced by fighting -- as he seeks to highlight the need for more international aid, the Associated Press reports.

"I'm not an expert in international affairs or diplomacy, but it doesn't take that to see the tremendous suffering here," he told the AP. "It's not something that we as human beings can, in good conscience, ignore.""

The actor is politically active and says he has learned the value of using his star power to forge change. "I think that, for better or worse, people with some profile in the arts have some currency to spend as celebrities. And for a time, I didn't spend that in any particularly productive way. And I got to a point where I thought, this is wasteful."