Mostly poor, welcoming white master in Africa (5)
I believe the answer is:
bwana
'master in africa' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'mostly poor welcoming white' is the wordplay.
'mostly poor' becomes 'ba' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'welcoming' indicates putting letters inside (in sense of 'inviting in').
'white' becomes 'wan' (very pale).
'ba' placed around 'wan' is 'BWANA'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bwana that I've seen before include "Old master" , "Master (Afrikaans)" , "African term of respect" , "Master's" , "master in Africa" .)