Liberia Reports Dozens of New Ebola Cases on Border

Weak health care systems in West Africa are everyone’s problem

ALJAZEER AMERICAN  by Ashoka Mukpo     Dec. 29, 2014           

...Building effective health systems must now become one of Liberia’s top priorities. This will not be easy. Resources are scarce in Liberia, and the priority in recent years has been achieving growth through foreign investment and equipping security forces. This has proved disastrous, as Ebola promises to derail the economy and exacerbate social tensions. There is an important lesson here: The provision of basic services such as education and health care can’t be treated as second-tier needs. Perhaps Ebola would have been brought under control before it wreaked havoc on the economy had health services been given more attention before the outbreak.

Inevitably, Liberia will need more aid to rebuild its health sector. This is a delicate issue. Some have argued that aid paradoxically makes it more difficult for countries such as Liberia to manage their own problems. Others point to aid conditionality that forces countries to follow one-size-fits-all development trajectories. There is no simple answer to this debate. But the international community will need to pitch in to help Liberia get back on its feet once the Ebola epidemic is over....

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