This essay is posing the question are Africans stupid concerning their health issues or, if it is the rest of the world that does in fact not know how to manage Africa’s health issues or their own. In particular I am going to use Zambia as my African case study.

I would argue that Africans have a number of factors that make them distinctly not ‘stupid.’ For example, in Zambia 15.3% of people have AIDS, there are 600,000 orphans as a result of AIDS. In order to reduce this number, ‘Anti Aids Clubs’ have been established in schools. There is a wide network of schools in Zambia so information about prevention and protection can easily be spread and targeted at a young people. This should result in a decrease of such a high percentage of Africans in Zambia suffering.
The Zambian Government have also admitted to the IHP they would benefit from ‘closer donor & international partner co-ordination.’ This shows Zambia knows that it needs to change and cannot achieve change by themselves. The first way of solving a problem is admitting to it. Therefore, the people of Zambia are clearly not being ‘stupid’ as they are not ignoring the problem.
You should also take into consideration that they have already established and put into place long term aid. I would say that if you were being ’stupid’ then you would not be looking into the future, but instead only thinking about short term aid. Clearly Zambia is planning how best to go about solving this problem rationally and has looked at aspects such as only 36% of people live in urban areas and therefore, as many people would think they should do, not put a majority of the Health Care centres in the cities. Instead, there are more rural health care centres in rural areas then urban ones 899 to 189 in fact. This shows Africa is targeting the right locations using research and statistics.
Finally, a debt cancellation of $4 billion in 2006 helped offer free health care and furthermore 2.7% of GDP in Zambia is spent on health care.
All these reasons demonstrate they are putting time, energy and knowledge into helping reduce Africa’s health care issues, and I would consequently say this is not the ‘stupid’ way to approach issues in Africa like the hypothesis suggests.

The second part of this question is ‘or is it just people in general?’ (who are stupid.) I think the most important issue is the fact that Africans are suffering from a disease they don’t know how to treat and in some cases, what causes it. In the UK there are 2.3 million diabetics and the bulk of these are type 2 sufferers. 16% of cancer cases in the UK amongst males are lung cancer, which is often caused by smoking and drinking. Arguably, we are bringing these diseases on ourselves. Unlike Africa we have the education to know better, but are constantly increasing costs for not only the NHS but ourselves. I would say this is ‘stupid’ behaviour regarding health issues as people in countries such as the UK do know better.
Another reason that could be seen as ‘stupid’ is countries insistence that Africa pays them back debts. Africa is putting paying back debts before paying for health care and education. In 2004 Zambians used 7.35% of its GDP repaying back the debt meaning they spend twice as much on repaying debt as they do on education and nearly three times as much as they do on health care. The following was taken from the ‘Make Poverty History’ website:

‘At the behest of foreign governments it has privatised public utilities, removed subsidies, deregulated its markets and opened its doors to foreign imports. In spite of these efforts, by 2003 Zambia's debt had been reduced by only 5% of the levels promised under the HIPC initiative.
The failure to cancel Zambia's debt in full is having catastrophic consequences for poor Zambians. Current trends suggest not only that Zambia will be unable to meet most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but also that it gets further from them as time goes on.’

The above also shows that countries such as the UK let problems escalate before dealing with them. Zambians currently have a life expectancy of 33 years and roughly half the teachers trained each year die of AIDS. Zambian students struggle to learn in classes that contain approximately 70 students. Problems are getting further and further out of hand before other countries start to help meaning the task is therefore harder. I would say this was ‘stupid’ as countries are also costing themselves more money then they would do if they had intervened earlier, more time and energy is being used and also, greater travesty is taking place.
And so the task becomes the NGO’s who are trying to help African countries but this could be seen as trying to force the issue and trying to make these countries advance faster than it is meant to happen. However, I would argue that it is better to do something than nothing at all. NGO’s alone will never have a adequate amount of money to abolish poverty and instead make improvements such as building schools, hospitals and providing clean drinking water.

In conclusion, I would say that African people are not being ‘stupid’ and are making the best of what they have. The politics in Africa are dramatically changing with 44 out of 50 countries having elections (democracy) within the last decade. This has a big effect on the health care of Africa as people are being given a say in what they feel they need. Independent TV shows and radio stations are also being widely broadcast, again a change for the better as it shows the Africans are accepting other peoples personal beliefs and ideas. This will hopefully lead back to there being less religious conflict. I would say, that in order for a great deal of change to be made the religious issues in Africa need to be similar to those in the UK. However, according to statistics there is now a great range of religions within Africa including Christian, Catholic, Methodist, Anglican, Hinduism and many more. This means that Africa is starting to be less religiously driven as there is a growing diversity of culture.
It is not about who is ‘stupid’ regarding health care and who isn’t, but instead about Africa and the rest of the world working well together to help Africa improve and solve the problems they currently have.