Giving Compass' Take:

• The West African Ebola outbreak highlighted shortcomings in the world's outbreak response system. The Rockefeller Foundation is investing in private sector response solutions to quickly address future outbreaks. 

• How can philanthropy best prepare for natural disasters like outbreaks? Why has the response historically been reactive and slow? 

• Learn how to prepare for the 2018 hurricane season.

Just two years ago, the world was on edge as the West African Ebola outbreak quickly spread across several countries. We watched the number of cases grow exponentially each day and couldn’t help but think that we were headed toward a global pandemic similar to those that had wiped out populations before us. While that didn’t happen, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia suffered severe losses, both in lives affected and socioeconomic upheaval.

Like natural disasters, the Ebola outbreak created immediate funding requirements which did not come. It took almost five months into the epidemic before the World Bank made the first major assistance pledge of $200 million and the WHO declared Ebola a public health emergency. By the time the money arrived, it was not enough.

On May 8, 2018, The Democratic Republic of Congo confirmed two cases of Ebola and declared a new outbreak. Immediately that day, the WHO declared an emergency and released $1m of contingency funding and a team of experts to work alongside the government, the affected community and partners on the ground. The immediate goal is to stop the spread to neighboring provinces and countries.

As of 15 of May, a total of 44 cases have been reported, 3 of which have been confirmed. There are still issues of infrastructure and country preparedness, but the recent response indicates that there is hope and an openness to try new solutions.

Through The Rockefeller Foundation’s Zero Gap portfolio, we utilize grant funding and program-related investments (PRI) to fund the early stage R&D and piloting of the next generation of market-making investment vehicles and products to mobilize large-scale institutional and retail investment towards the SDGs.

Read the full article about preparing for a global outbreak by Andrea Barrios at The Rockefeller Foundation.