New York City, USA – 3 October 2014 - UNDP is carrying out a high-level mission to Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Senegal, aiming to boost efforts to contain Ebola outbreak while helping to preserve essential services and livelihoods.
The crisis is continuing to cause not only immediate health and humanitarian impacts, but also increasingly crippling social and economic effects, breaking trust and social cohesion, draining development resources and further impoverishing isolated and vulnerable communities.
Assistant Secretary-General Magdy Martínez-Solimán and Deputy Assistant Administrator of UNDP, Ruby Sandhu-Rojon, will travel to the three countries from 6-14 October 2014, to galvanize UN coordination efforts to combat the Ebola crisis and assess UNDP’s work on the ground. They will be accompanied by UNDP's Director of Communications, Mila Rosenthal.
The trip will include site visits to Ebola treatment centers, as well as meetings with Government authorities, partner UN Agencies, NGOs and Civil Society Organizations involved in halting the spread of the disease.
Scheduled field trips to affected communities will assess more closely UNDP’s work on the ground, which includes a vast public information campaign and provision of medical kits for Ebola survivors in Sierra Leone, and improving access to services in Liberia.
Martínez-Solimán and Sandhu-Rojon will also hold talks with Special Representative and head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) Anthony Banbury.
At the end of their visit, Martinez-Solimán and Sandhu-Rojon will join Abdoulaye Mar Dieye, Assistant Secretary-General and Director of UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Africa, who will be mobilizing international partners and the UN system in support of the response. In his capacity as Chair of the Regional UNDG for Africa, Dieye will also convene a special meeting of all Regional Country Directors in Dakar, Senegal.
The visit will be documented with insights, photos and videos from the three countries at https://storify.com/undp/ebola-crisis-undp-in-the-frontlines (updated daily beginning Oct 6).
Contact Information
Accompanying the mission: Nicolas Douillet, Communications Specialist +1 (917) 701 1520 nicolas.douillet@Undp.org
In Monrovia, Liberia: Augusta Pshorr, Communications Officer +231 652 1425 augusta.pshorr@undp.org
In Freetown, Sierra Leone: Abdul-Karim Bah, Communications Analyst +232 78- 272315 abdul-karim.bah@undp.org