One of Washington’s worst secrets is that there is a select number of people who can see the most powerful man in the world, the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, at a moment’s notice. Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is on that list. She had barely made her request when the voice at the other end warmly declared, “Catch the first available taxi.” Then she kicked in with a caveat, “Can I bring along my two new best friends?” The voice at the other end promptly boomed, “Of course, you can bring them as long as you don’t include John Boehner (the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives and an unrepentant thorn in Obama’s flesh).”
Within a few minutes, Ban Ki-moon, United Nations secretary-general, also called and was accorded the same courtesy. Before the hour was over, Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank and a public health expert who owes his appointment to Barack Obama’s insistence, also called to book an appointment. Of course, Barack would be delighted to see him. Anyway, before they could reach the White House, alarm bells were already ringing. The security alert went from yellow to amber and then red!
The entire US security system went into overdrive and even threatened to crash while the intelligence bosses were trying to figure out whether America was under threat of an imminent nuclear attack or invasion by aliens from outer space. It is a sufficiently serious issue for any one of the most powerful people in the world to want to see the president of the US, but for three of them to make the same request almost simultaneously is a very big deal indeed.
Strangely, Obama was very calm and relaxed as he welcomed each of his guests. No hugging or kisses (strictly against protocol) but a ready smile plus a warm handshake would do. Even the handshake was somewhat hesitant considering the Ebola scare!
Anyway, the president of the United States did not waste time before getting down to business: “Would you like a drink first (tea or coffee) and should I meet with each of you separately?”
The spontaneous and unanimous response was: “Mr President, all of us are here for the same thing – EBOLA.”
Barack Obama was at his best when he immediately declared: “How amazing! That is precisely what I have been thinking about all morning. At breakfast, Michelle and my lovely daughters Malia and Sasha would talk of nothing else. Let’s get down to work.”
It was the president of the World Bank who grabbed the bull by the horns. “For Ebola, the global response has been late, inadequate and slow,” he began.
“Recently, the international community has made positive strides in its response, led by the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as international institutions like the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. Nonetheless, we still can do much more. Close to a year ago, just weeks after Typhoon Haiyan caused major destruction and loss of lives in the Philippines, 150 medical response teams – each with 25 to 30 people – had been deployed to the archipelago’s hardest-hit areas. But in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three West African countries hit hardest by the Ebola outbreak, just 30 medical response teams are on the ground, treating and caring for patients – even though we are now 11 months into this crisis. More health workers have been promised, but they’re arriving too slowly.
“The Ebola outbreak poses one of the most complex and difficult challenges that I’ve seen in all my years as an infectious disease physician. Because of the poverty in the three most affected countries, it exceeds the capacity of their emergency, health and fiscal resources. Faced with these conditions, we must guard against approaches that are based on aspirations for these countries and the poor that are too low to treat and contain the epidemic.
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“Usually, the World Bank Group has worked in the medium-to long term on development projects and helping clients build the systems necessary to promote economic growth, create jobs, educate children, and improve health. To combat Ebola, we needed to move to an emergency footing and quickly. We looked across the entire bank and brought the institution’s full firepower to bear against the virus. We’ve sent capital, shared knowledge, helped develop response strategies, and analysed the potential economic impact…
“The stakes of this effort in human lives and economic growth are incredibly high and grow higher every day we delay in ramping up our response. For this reason, I have spent a lot of time over the last two months working with bank colleagues to stop the virus. I have been in frequent contact with Presidents Conde, Johnson Sirleaf, and Koroma to understand how the bank can help them on the front lines. I have also reached out to leaders from all over Africa and donor nations, to relay the most important message: We must do all we can to stop Ebola, and we must act now because delay exponentially raises the human and economic cost of stopping the epidemic,” Jim Yong Kim said.
Before the session was over, it was Ban Ki-moon who made our day by pitching on our behalf: “Mr President, may I invite our friends, the Seventy Senior Elders (ex-partners of KPMG) to join us?” It was so gracious of President Obama, without hesitating for one moment, to summon his aides: “We have company. Let’s move over to a larger room – The Lincoln Room. There is plenty of space there.”
To cut a long story short, that is how we became a part of the historic moment when Barack Obama declared full scale war on Ebola.
J.K Randle
