Building back better: Sierra Leone’s journey to self-reliance

n 2014, we were confronted with a frightening outbreak of Ebola in West Africa. The magnitude and rate of infection overwhelmed the international donor community, and the U.S. Government took a leading role in what became the largest effort by a single donor government to respond to Ebola. An interagency task force was created as a coordinating body for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to ensure a seamless, cross-sectoral response, provide guidance to the missions, and to strengthen communications between the field and Washington on the Ebola outbreak in real time. This whole-of-U.S. Government effort—led by USAID, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Department of Defense, and with support from international development organizations from around the world—not only stemmed the tide of Ebola virus disease, but allowed community health care workers to respond with compassionate resilience.