Ebola: Moving from emergency to recovery

DEVEX   by Richard Jones                                                         March 17, 2015

(scroll down for link to EU statement.)

As the death toll from Ebola now tops 10,000 in West Africa, donors and aid implementers are figuring out how to best transition from the emergency to the recovery phase of the crisis.

Top EU and U.N. officials, leaders of Ebola-affected nations and representatives from the African Union, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector and the scientific community met in Brussels, Belgium, earlier this month to make progress on this goal. They agreed to embark on the design of a road map to help the economies of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia get back on track, starting with the priority task of rebuilding health systems.

But that, of course, will be no easy feat.

“We are at a really crucial stage of the real fight against Ebola, because this is a turning point when the emergency stage or the emergency response or medical response to Ebola containment is now turning into coordinating and structuring the long-term recovery program,” European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica said in an exclusive interview with Devex at the Palais d’Egmont in Brussels.

While the conference did analyze the emergency response in detail, Mimica stressed the talks were more geared toward identifying the priorities for recovery, and how EU aid can best support this process.

Read complete story.
https://www.devex.com/news/ebola-moving-from-emergency-to-recovery-85725

COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION   PRESS RELEASE  March 16, 2015
Excerpt:
"The Council underlines the importance of disbursing the remaining emergency and recovery funding pledged to date in a timely and coordinated fashion and in particular to cover an immediate US$400 million funding gap for the actions of the United Nations (UN) agencies and the additional support required for early recovery priorities and regional preparedness. The Council invites the Commission and the Member States to contribute towards these requirements, including through the rapid disbursement of the remainder of the €1.3 billion pledged by the EU and its Member States but not yet fully committed. It also calls for continued cooperation and coordination among actors involved in the ongoing response and recovery to ensure optimal and efficient use of resources."

Read complete statement.
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2015/03/16-council-conclusions-ebola/