Governance and Health in Post-Conflict Countries: The Ebola Outbreak in Liberia and Sierra Leone

This paper explores the response to the 2014-2015 Ebola crisis in West Africa, with a particular emphasis on Sierra Leone and Liberia. More specifically, the text’s authors explore 1) the state of healthcare governance in the two countries prior to the outbreak; and 2) how policymakers, local communities, health service providers, and volunteers grappled with the challenges posed by the outbreak. The authors also provide a number of lessons learned from the crisis, including the importance of local actor engagement, the positives and negatives of the emergency measures that were applied, and the inadequacy of strictly top-down approaches.