HIGHLIGHTS
• World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim announced in Ghana, Accra, an additional $100 million funding in its Ebola crisis response.
• US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power has seen evidence that the international response is starting to yield results yet more action is still required.
• A UK naval ship, RFA Argus, completed its 10-day voyage from England to Sierra Leone.
Key Political and Economic Developments
World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim announced in Ghana, Accra, an additional $100 million funding in its Ebola crisis response to speed up deployment of foreign health workers to the three worst-affected countries in West Africa. The announcement increases the World Bank Group’s funding for the Ebola fight over the last three months in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to more than $500 million. This additional financing will help set up a coordination hub in close cooperation with the three countries, the WHO, UNMEER, and other agencies to recruit, train and deploy qualified foreign health workers. President Kim also met with UNMEER SRSG Banbury to discuss this new programme as well as progress on the wider response toward meeting the goals of 70 per cent of safe burials and 70 per cent of cases isolated by 1 December 2014.
US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, has said that some countries are yet to shoulder their share of the EVD response burden and restrictions on aid workers returning home from affected countries could deter thousands from helping. She said there were still not enough doctors, and nurses, nor basic medical supplies such as plastic gloves, bleach and thermometers. Ambassador Power did, however, acknowledge that foreign aid and a stronger local response were beginning to make a difference. She gave examples of Muslim clerics in Guinea encouraging people to bury EVD victims safely, a US Navy Ebola testing lab in Liberia giving those who might be infected their results within hours rather than days and a clinic run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in the Liberian capital LibMonrovia that now had enough beds so that it no longer had to turn away patients. Ambassador Power made these comments from Brussels having concluded her visit to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
National Response Coordinator for Sierra Leone, Steven Gaojia, and UNMEER Ebola Crisis Manager, Amadu Kamara, witnessed first hand the scale-up of the response in Port Loko, by visiting the country's first two Community Care Centres, run by WHO, a Forward Logistics Operating base, run by WFP, and a Command and Control Centre for safe burials and ambulance coordination.
A planning workshop co-chaired by UNMEER and the National Coordinator of the Ebola Coordination Cell in Guinea was concluded with a presentation to President Condé on the main outcomes of the discussion.
A UNDP socio-economic impact study on Guinea has shown that economic growth in the country slowed from 4.5 percent to 2.4 percent. In addition, government revenue has decreased by USD 105 million while expenses have increased by USD 100 million, prompting the Government to revise its budget for the coming months. The study also notes a deterioration of poor households' food and nutritional security, postponement of the beginning of the school year and lower attendance rates in health facilities: hospital visits have decreased by 53 percent, medical appointments by 59 percent, C-sections are down 14 percent, and vaccinations 30 percent.