What Liberia teaches us about the failures of aid
By Sisonke Msimang
Africa is a country | October 19th, 2014
Professor Thandika Mkandawire is a development economist with a sharp
mind and an even sharper tongue – one of Africa’s finest. Last week I
moderated a discussion on health and governance in Africa at a
conference in Cape Town in which he gave the keynote address. He
demonstrated why he is such a celebrated public intellectual. In front
of an audience of over one thousand scientists, doctors and health
systems researchers, Mkandawire paraphrased Georges Clemenceau’s famous
quip that war is too important to be left to generals, by suggesting
that ‘health is too important to leave to health practitioners.’
In the midst of an Ebola outbreak, and at a conference taking place
in Africa, the words – which were intended to be light-hearted – stung.
In part I suspect that this was because they rang true.
While health professionals are crucial frontline responders, the
Ebola crisis is indeed too important to be left to medical personnel.
Like most responses to humanitarian disasters that are mounted by the
international community, the Ebola response is focused too narrowly on
the technical aspects of containing a problem, and too little on the
underlying social and political reasons why the problem has been allowed
to fester in the first place.
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