Academic-NGO Partnership to Fight Ebola in Liberia

Statement of the problem: In response to the worst Ebola outbreak in history, by fall 2014 US government and non-governmental agencies were rapidly scaling up response strategies in West Africa. 

Approach: University of Minnesota (UMN) and a Minnesota-based international NGO, American Refugee Committee (ARC) formed a strategic partnership to support response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa.  ARC, a globally respected development agency, was charged with constructing, staffing, and managing an Ebola Treatment Unit in a remote Liberian county. ARC invited a team of School of Nursing faculty members to co-develop the early response in Liberia. The nursing team brought decades of relevant field experience and scholarship to the collaborative efforts, specifically regarding Liberian healthcare, poverty, post-conflict recovery, health system degradation, and infectious disease epidemiology--all contributing factors to Ebola’s rapid spread.

Outcome: Successful timely collaboration involving public health nursing leaders contributed to positive outcomes in the global response to Ebola in Liberia. Logistical and legal collaborative challenges were overcome to facilitate this partnered public health response effort.

Implications: Unrealized potential from academic partnerships with NGOS and other development entities results from missed collaborative opportunities. NGOs in challenging environments often have years-long relationships with local government and communities. NGOs know the situation on the ground, the logistical challenges; they implement complex projects and support local professional development. Academia, particularly public health nursing, contributes innovation, political history, research and data-driven intervention strategies, deep ethnographic methods, and program evaluation design.