Ebola Petition and response from Mr Frutuoso de Melo, Director General of EuropeAid

During the Africa Works 2014 Conference in Leiden, a petition on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was drawn up, asking for immediate action from the Netherlands government and the European Commission. The petition was initiated by Mirjam van Reisen (International Colloquium on Women’s leadership and Peace Building) and Ton Dietz/Gitty Petit (African Studies Centre Leiden) and supported by Hon. Julia Duncan Cassell (Minister of Gender & Development Liberia), H.E. Ibrahim Sorie (Ambassador Siera Leone in Brussels), Hon. Sabine de Bethune (former Chair Belgian Senate), Joseph J. Seh (Centre for Collective Learning and Action/Migrants Consortium Against Ebola), Remco van der Veen (Cordaid) and Ginny Mooy (KickEbola), with input from other participants at the conference.

The petition was handed over to Mr Hans Docter (the Netherlands envoy on Ebola), and was also addressed to Ms Lilianne Ploumen (the Netherlands Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation) and to Mr Fernando Frutuoso de Melo (the Director General of EuropeAid). Mr Fernando Frutuoso de Melo recently (24 October 2014) responded to the petition as follows:

Dear Ms van Reisen,

I write in response to your open letter, published in September, and your more recent petition - sent to me on Wednesday of this week.  Let me first reassure you that, many of the concerns raised in those documents are shared by the EU and we have taken action at a number of different levels to support the Ebola affected countries and the region.

Let me start by highlighting the EU's response: we are implementing a €204 million package to support the countries currently affected by the Ebola virus in West Africa: Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. This package addresses not only the medical impact of the epidemic but also takes into account the wider development impact - including the challenges in providing economic stability, food security, water and sanitation in the countries affected by the Ebola crisis. 

We are moving forward with delivery: a first payment of Budget Support to Liberia and one for Sierra Leone have been processed; the three mobile laboratories foreseen are operational on the ground in Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria; and more Budget Support payments are to follow before the end of the year to Liberia and Sierra Leone. We are supporting the African Union mission to fight Ebola, which includes mobilising health workers to work in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

The open letter asks for the creation of a special European Envoy on the Fight against Ebola in order to ensure coordination and to strengthen the coordination. The EU just yesterday at the European Council nominated an EU coordinator for Ebola: Christos Stylianides, due to become the Commissioner for humanitarian affairs and crisis management.  This builds on earlier actions in order to step up the EU's coordinated response to the Ebola epidemic. The Commission's Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) is playing a pivotal role in this intra-EU coordination with daily coordination meetings with all relevant Commission services participating and external stakeholders. A number of other specialist coordination mechanisms have been activated including the Health Security Committee, the European External Action Service (EEAS) Crisis Platform and the EEAS EU Military Committee. In addition a Comprehensive Response Framework document has been developed, presenting an overview of the EU's response.

The open letter also proposes setting up a separate fund for a special Ebola Representative to control. The EU has already, through ECHO, the ability to work in a flexible way and support our partners on the ground with the expertise to fight the Ebola crisis. There are some on the ground having real impact, the obvious example being Médecins Sans Frontières.  I want to ensure the right sequencing of actions, from humanitarian to recovery phase, and ensure an approach Linking Relief, Rehabilitation and Development 'LRRD'.  We think that the most efficient approach is to dovetail development action with ECHO's actions and partners, to the extent possible, with an LRRD package with partners.  We want to be sure that we are delivering through efficient and effective channels, particularly given the scale of the crisis and that we have clear results to present to our Member States, the European Parliament and ultimately the European citizens. 

We will continue to monitor the development and to ensure that we, together with the EU Member States and other partners, respond to the evolvement of the epidemic and towards recovery in the region. 

Best regards,

Fernando Frutuoso de Melo

During the Afrikadag on 1 November, a Call to Action from migrant organisations in the Netherlands, 'Kicking Ebola out of Sub-Saharan African Communities', was handed over to the ASC's Ton Dietz. Read the Migrant Organisations Call to Action.

ASC Leiden, 6 November 2014