Lessons from the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone

The COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder of the fragility of healthcare systems, which in many countries are marred by a lack of reliable electricity access that is necessary to deliver basic medical services. Past health crises offer important insights to ensure that strategies and actions that follow the first wave of economic and social measures deployed in response to crises focus on increasing the future resilience of healthcare systems.

This brief provides an analysis of international finance commitments and disbursements to Sierra Leone – one of the countries worst affected by the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak. It finds that, despite the importance of the energy sector in the context of a pandemic, energy investments during and post-Ebola declined sharply. This situation was worsened by previously committed financing to energy sector projects being cancelled, stalled or redirected to other priorities that arose from the Ebola crisis.

This knowledge brief has been developed as part of the Energizing Finance research series.