AfDB, World Bank offer $2 billion to rebuild Ebola-hit countries

Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, one of the countries hardest-hit by the Ebola epidemic. FILE PHOTO | AFP 

By BERNA NAMATA, The EastAfrican

In Summary

• The post-Ebola recovery programme aims to help the three countries -- Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea -- make a successful transition from relief to sustainable development by addressing fragility and potential spillovers.
• The programme targets at kick-starting economic activities to drive growth including supporting farmers, small businesses as well as investors back to these countries.
• While the Ebola outbreak dealt a blow to the GDP growth of the economies in 2014, in April, the World Bank estimated that the three countries will lose at least $2.2 billion in economic growth in 2015.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the World Bank plan to invest $2 billion for the next two years to support the recovery of economies worst hit by the Ebola epidemic.

Under a joint initiative launched on Wednesday in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire the post-Ebola recovery programme for the Mano River Union, bloc grouping Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, aims to help the three countries make a successful transition from relief to sustainable development by addressing fragility and potential spillovers.

The epidemic has caused disruptions of economic activities, which now pose major challenge in domestic revenue mobilisation, investments, external trade and livelihoods.

The programme targets at kick-starting economic activities to drive growth including supporting farmers, small businesses as well as investors back to these countries.

According to the outgoing President of AfDB Donald Kaberuka, the programme’s goal is to build stronger and more resilient institutional and economic infrastructures in the affected countries to withstand future shocks from epidemics and other non-health related crises.

“At the end of the day it is building primary healthcare to ensure that epidemics in the future can be managed. When Ebola reached Senegal, Mali and Nigeria it was contained –these are not very rich countries, they are poor countries but they have the basic primary healthcare,” Dr Kaberuka said.

He pointed out that basic primary healthcare was lacking in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea due to political instability and past histories of civil war.

“We need to work with these countries not simply to focus on primary healthcare but building social infrastructure,” he said.

While the Ebola outbreak dealt a blow to the GDP growth of the economies in 2014, in April this year, the World Bank estimated that the three countries will lose at least $2.2 billion in economic growth in 2015.

The Bank also projects that Liberia’s economy will grow by a modest 3.0 per cent in 2015, while Guinea and Sierra Leone will contract by 0.2 per cent and 2.0 per cent respectively.

This is still well below pre-Ebola estimates of 4.3 per cent, 6.8 per cent and 8.9 per cent for Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone respectively.

These projections also imply forgone income across the three countries of about $359 million in 2013 prices according to AfDB and World Bank estimates.

According to Kaifala Marah, Sierra Leone’s Finance minister, the Ebola epidemic has cost the country over $ 1 billion and undermined the country’s ability to rebuild from civil war that ended in 2002.

“Before Ebola we felt we were on [the] trajectory of [a] resilient country… When Ebola struck, we realised more than ever before that we are still a fragile country. We lost more than two years of development growth,” he said.

The process of rebuilding the country Mr Marah said, is now more complicated.

“The truth is it will take some time.... Our institutions are weak. Within the health sector we need several layers of experts to be part of the process.”

As at May 9, 2015, the number of reported cases had risen to 26,722 and 11,064 deaths across West Africa.

Liberia, the country with the highest number of deaths, was declared free Ebola on May 9. “We are beginning to see a recovery; our forecast has changed more positively.

“What we are doing is working with the other two affected countries – Sierra Leone and Guinea – to be able to share experiences, support [them] with raw material and technical help to mobilise support from elsewhere,” said Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Liberian President, adding that a regional approach to fighting the pandemic is crucial.

Experts argue that the main risk that could derail the recovery transition relates to resurgence of the outbreak as Ebola often returns in countries that have experienced it.

For instance, the disease first appeared in Zaire –now the Democratic Republic of Congo – in 1976, has since then resurfaced multiple times in different areas of the country.