Anthony Banbury, the just-departed head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), told an IPI audience on February 3rd that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon played the “critical role” of mobilizing the global response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa last fall.
Discussing “Ebola and the UN’s First Emergency Response,” Mr. Banbury—who until January 3rd was the head of the UN’s first-ever emergency mission—said everything about the mission was unique: the crisis itself; the fact that the mission was the first to have all UN agencies under its direct authority; and the fact that it was working in four different countries simultaneously.
