Roughly $3.4 billion in pledges were made recently at the United Nations to help Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea eradicate Ebola and begin rebuilding health systems and economies that were devastated by the outbreak, according to a Reuters report.
Previously, the United Nations announced that $3.2 billion was needed to support the three countries' national recovery plans for the next two years, and Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf estimated $4 billion was required to cover a separate sub-regional plan.
Following a preliminary tally of pledges taken on Friday, Helen Clark, head of the U.N. Development Programme, estimated the total amount now allocated for Ebola recovery is more than $5 billion thus far, which she described as "a great start," according to the report.
Additionally, President Johnson-Sirleaf appealed for international donors to cancel debt owed by the West African nations in a press conference, saying, "The world as a whole has a great stake in how we together respond to this global threat. Diseases, just like terrorism, know no national boundaries."
Some of the largest pledges made at the meeting came from:
- The African Development Bank — $745 million
- The World Bank — $650 million
- The European Union — $500 million
- Britain — $381 million
- The Islamic Development Bank — $360 million
- The United States — $266 million; and
- Germany — $220 million
The U.N. meeting and pledges followed the re-emergence of Ebola in Liberia last week.
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