Policy Debate: International responses to global epidemics - Ebola and beyond

This document includes papers which are contributions to the ‘Policy Debate’ section of International Development Policy, the review of the Graduate Institute of Geneva. In this section, academics, policy-makers and practitioners engage in a dialogue on global development challenges.

The initial paper was written by Monica Rull, from Doctors Without Borders (Médécins sans Frontières) Switzerland, who provides an in-depth examination of the collective failure to respond in a timely and efficient manner to global epidemics, such as Ebola. The author underlines the following:

• There is a need to guarantee surveillance, alert and response at a micro-level.
• The current system ought to be reviewed and reformed to respond to the local needs of populations affected by epidemics, even those epidemics that do not pose an international threat.
• Investing in emergency response should not be questioned in ‘good years’, otherwise responders will be unprepared when an epidemic hits.
• Almost all governments have emergency preparedness and contingency plans; however, the holes in those
  plans only appear when the time comes to implement them.

The paper is followed by critical comments of two other authors.

International Development Policy | Revue internationale de politique de développement [Online], December 2015. This document is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.