Why the Ebola Crisis is a Rule of Law Problem

Why the Ebola Crisis is a Rule of Law Problem:  As I write this, the World’s largest outbreak of Ebola continues unabated.  International health organizations are predicting that the death toll will continue to rise exponentially, the economic impact on West Africa is beginning to be discussed, and the United States is (literally) sending in the Marines.  And as normally happens, the blame game on who is responsible for letting it get so out of hand has begun.

But most current discussions continue to miss a key point.  The Ebola crisis is a terrible case study about what can happen when you combine a deadly communicable disease with serious gaps in governance and the rule of law. 

It’s important to point out that West Africa, and Liberia and Sierra Leone in particular, has been the recipient of an enormous amount of foreign assistance.   As Liberia and Sierra Leone emerged from their brutal civil wars, the international community poured resources into the countries.  Governmental structures were restored, security forces re-trained and re-equipped, and essential services of every type were reinstated.  Supposedly.  I’d like to also point out that when donors in West Africa talked about objectives and risks, the threat of pandemic was always high on the list.  But honestly, from my own experience in Liberia, it was really more of a block that was checked: “Yes, of course we've considered the threat of pandemic . . .”

So what has been the result of all that foreign aid?  Well, we now have a public health crisis with global implications that West African governments have been completely and utterly unable to manage.  It’s one thing to build and equip a hospital or clinic; it’s another to build a public health system that can manage it – capably and accountably.  It’s one thing to train doctors and nurses; it’s a different development challenge to train health care professionals who can adapt to crisis and change, and oversee government performance of emerging public health care needs.   It’s one thing to train and equip government security forces to respond to national security threats; but training them to be credible first responders during a national health and safety disaster requires another set of skills and a different mindset regarding roles, responsibilities, and public information.

These are core governance and rule of law issues, but what has been evident to date that governments in the affected countries were not equipped to respond in a responsible, credible, way.  Nor were they trusted by their own people to do so.  Rural populations have either ignored government warnings and advice, or refused to even believe it.  Corruption and incompetence have created such an extreme level of mistrust between the government and the governed that in some parts of the affected countries, people would rather die than follow a government directive.  As for efforts to contain the spread through measures such as airport screening at point of departure?  Well, despite pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into re-building critical transportation infrastructure and customs and border capacity, there is not enough oversight in these countries to ensure that screeners adhere to the standards, and no assurances that they are even enforcing them equally to all passengers.   

If we are going to play the blame game, or more positively, if we are going to assess what type of capacity building is needed to contain Ebola and prevent future pandemic, we owe it to ourselves and the citizens of the countries we help to take a hard look at how we are building governance capacity.  Top down capacity building that will strengthen the host nations’ ability to manage and respond to crisis is key of course, but we have to also look how the level of accountability that we donors demand of the recipient governments; the checks and balances that they are required to build into their systems and enforce; and the means and methods governments have at their disposal to credibly communicate critical information to the public.   Bottom up capacity building – focused on community engagement on public health and safety -- has to be an equal part in the assistance equation as well.   

Building trust and confidence between the government and the governed is fundamental to maintaining the rule of law, and enforcing the rule of law is critical in times of crisis and uncertainty when governmental control is key to controlling the spread of a disaster.  As we look to the future of assistance in Africa, and ways in which we re-calibrate our response, we have to be realistic about the role that weak governance has played.  Although governance development is hard, and its results are less tangible that training, building, and equipping, it has to be the priority.  Otherwise, as the current pandemic has illustrated so tragically, most of the technical assistance is for naught.