Affected Countries Working on Post-Ebola Recovery Plan

Finance ministers of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone agree on strategy

Ebola outbreak reverses recent economic progress in affected states

Ebola spillover effects beginning to be felt in other African countries

He told an October 11 news conference during the 2014 IMF–World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington, D.C., that he had recently met with the finance ministers of Guinea and Liberia to explore a post-Ebola strategy.

“We have decided that we will come up with a holistic strategy that we will share with our partners, both bilateral and multilateral,” Marah said, adding that the three ministers had resolved to “use country strategies to be able to help our countries out.”

Marah recalled that thanks to its strong mining sector, Sierra Leone had for the last few years been one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies. “Our growth rate for this year was set for 11.3 percent, we were doing well and our macroeconomic fundamentals were also strong. We were doing well on roads, on energy, on tourism, on agriculture.”

Foreign investment flows were also buoyant as the country attracted major companies, Marah stated. The government was even reviewing its 2035 target date for Sierra Leone attaining middle–income country status, with a view to bringing the date forward.

‘Then came Ebola’

“Then came Ebola, in May, and everything was reversed,” Marah said. “Ebola has made me appreciate and begin to understand that fragility is self reinforcing, because if we had had the right infrastructure, the right institutions, and the right human capacity to be able to confront Ebola, we would not have suffered as we have.”

Marah said mining companies were cutting back operations in Sierra Leone and manufacturing activity has declined. “Cocoa and coffee, which account for 90 percent of agricultural exports, is also at the bottom now, because people have abandoned their farms—everybody is running away from Ebola. Construction also is bad, because many of the contractors have abandoned their sites.

“Tourism is down 50-60 percent. Air travel is about to stagnate and strangle the whole subregion. We have been isolated. Whether that is a global best practice or strategy, someone has to advise us. But it really is killing our economies,” Marah said, adding that the isolation amounted to an “economic embargo” on the subregion.

Marah welcomed the international response to the Ebola outbreak. “The world has responded. It has been slow and it has been late, but we are...