In September, the United Nations Foundation, in coordination with UN partners announced a special fund that enables individuals, the private sector and civil society to directly support UN entities engaged in the Ebola outbreak response in West Africa.
While there is much hysteria in the U.S., given that two Texas nurses have tested positive for the Ebola virus, CEO and President of the United Nations Foundation, Kathy Calvin, spoke with Fortune about three stories missing from the Ebola headline.
From Fortune:
- Ebola is not everywhere in Africa for a reason. “The disease has been around for quite sometime. It has been contained before and it is being contained right now in countries like Gabon. Where we are seeing the outbreak is in three countries that are still recovering from conflict and are rebuilding, and they are too vulnerable and fragile to handle these kinds of attacks. Why isn’t it everywhere in Africa? Because where you have a robust system – we hope Dallas has a robust system – there are methods in place for quarantine and immediate reaction.”
- Borders are not protection. “Even putting up barriers at borders doesn’t work. The countries that tried it immediately had to back off of it. It is everyone’s first instinct and it’s not workable.”
- The private sector is key to finding solutions. “The private sector engagement and contribution of support on everything has been tremendous. I’m talking about the companies that are providing some of the protective gear and the companies that are already in Africa that are stepping up. The private sector has found a robust number of ways to be deeply engaged from financial to real assets to it’s own role in advocacy. We know that’s what the future has to look like. Problem solving is not limited to just governments.”
