Roundup: UN meeting seeks aid for economies battered by 20,000-plus Ebola deaths

A two-day conference on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa wound up at UN Headquarters in New York Friday with pledges of financial commitments to support national and regional recovery efforts for Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone where more than 20,000 people died from the disease.

The conference, aiming to aid the trio of nations "get to zero cases, stay at zero and recover," was organized by the United Nations in partnership with the African Union (AU), European Union (EU), the World Bank (WB) and the African Development Bank (ADB).

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon convened the high-level event Friday, attended by the AU chairman, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the presidents of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and chaired by UN Development Program (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark.

Cases in Guinea and Sierra Leone have been reduced considerably. New cases in Liberia were reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the week ending July 5. The latest Ebola crisis emerged in March 2014.

The secretary-general said the negative impact on their economies, livelihoods and lives, "demands that the global community continue to prioritize recovery from Ebola even long after the crisis subsides. This will be essential to 'stay at zero ' in order to strengthen resilience to withstand future shocks."

Investing in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia will yield global dividends in preventing local outbreaks from becoming national and regional pandemics, he said. "That is why today is about more than speeches and pledges -- it is a chance to forge a partnership for a better future .. free of Ebola."

"Currently, the combat against Ebola is going in a positive direction," Liu Jieyi, the Chinese permanent representative to the United Nations, said at the UN conference. "The effort of the international community in this regard has achieved good results."

On the Ebola recovery efforts in the next stage, Liu said, "The international community should build a sense of community of common destiny for all mankind, continue to strengthen unity and concerted action in an effort to help the three countries combat the epidemic and realize recovery."

Ambassador Maria Cristina Perceval of Argentina delivered a statement on behalf of President Sam Kutesa at the 69th session of the UN General Assembly.

"To successfully end the crisis, recovery efforts must shift from the immediate emergency response, to a long-term approach to "build back better and ensure greater resilience to potential future shocks," Kutesa said.

"Special emphasis must be given to strengthening and building more effective and robust healthcare services throughout the region, while consideration must be given to creating more resilient institutions and decentralized services," he said.

"We must maintain this unique spirit of unity going forward; not only to reach a sustained 'zero case' scenario, but also to ensure the long-term economic and social well-being of the people and the region," Kutesa said.

Meanwhile, President Mugabe announced that the AU would convene an International Conference on Ebola in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea July 20, while the AU Support to Ebola Outbreak in West Africa ( ASEOWA) and the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) " have begun to prepare for an eventual drawdown."

However, he said the UN conference is a call "to up-scale its preparedness and capacity to handle and manage disasters, particularly health epidemics. The imperative to build capacity and preparedness in that regard is too visible to ignore."

"It is important to recognize and emphasize the need to embrace inclusive and complementary Ebola-response mechanisms which should have realistic focus on capacity building to strengthening health delivery systems, improving access to safe water and sanitation and reviving economic activities which have been disrupted by the outbreak," Mugabe said.

For her part, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia got down to the hard figures.

"The gap of financing is estimated at 7.2 billion U.S. dollars, " she said, adding "4 billion (U.S. dollars) will finance the sub- regional plan," referring to the Mano River Union, an organization made up of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone as well as Cote d' Ivoire.

"A strong Mano River Union can be a formidable force for recovery and resilience in the sub-region," Sirleaf said.

The funds were to be managed through a single Consolidated Ebola Recovery Trust Fund (CERTF), Sirleaf said.

President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone praised the heroism of thousands of Ebola response workers who had helped contain the virus to just a few neighborhoods.

But Koroma warned that the international community should not shift its attention before the crisis was truly over.

"Humanity sometimes displays short attention spans and may want to move on to other issues because the threat from Ebola seems over," he said. "Without rebuilding the resilience of communities to respond to the comebacks experts say are likely the public health threat would remain."

"The threat is never over until we rebuild the health sectors Ebola demolished; until we rebuild livelihoods in agriculture that it compromised, until we shore up government revenues it dried up; and until we breathe life again unto the private sector it has suffocated," Koroma said. Endite