Lessons from the Bank’s Response to the 2014–2016 Ebola Crisis

In response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the African Development Bank (AfDB or “the Bank”) has launched a number of measures to fight the outbreak and its economic consequences in Africa. The objective of this lesson note is to inform the Bank’s COVID-19 crisis response based on lessons drawn from its response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014.

This lesson note focuses on two projects which made up part of the Bank’s response to the Ebola crisis: 1) Technical assistance to support countries (Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia) most affected by the Ebola epidemic, and 2) the Strengthening West African Public Health Systems project. These two projects represent only a part of the Bank’s total response to the epidemic. They were selected due to the availability of project completion reports and other documentation. This note features lessons identified from the projects to inform the design and implementation of projects and crisis response to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and is not intended to be an assessment of the success of the two projects.

The key lessons drawn from the two projects include:

• Active community consultation, engagement, social mobilization and proper analysis of the social environment contributes to good project design.
• Including government officials as members of the Project Implementation Units for large and complex projects is important.
• Operational flexibility in the design and implementation of the project can be helpful to meet project objectives.
• Country ownership and empowerment of local organizations through community engagement and social mobilization are key for the success of any project that operates in the community.
• A lack of a unified regulatory framework is likely to hamper the installation of volunteer health workers and other support mechanisms.
• Including capacity building as part of an emergency or crisis response that has severe restrictions on movement and personal contacts does not work.
• Lack of a monitoring and evaluation officer for a project of this magnitude adversely affects smooth and efficient project delivery.