The Effectiveness of International Non-Governmental Organizations’ Response Operations during Public Health Emergency: Lessons Learned from the 2014 Ebola Outbreak in Sierra Leone

Yoon Ah Shin, Jungwon Yeo and Kyujin Jung
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Yoon Ah Shin: Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
Jungwon Yeo: School of Public Administration, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA
Kyujin Jung: Department of Public Administration and Graduate School of Governance, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul 02841, Korea

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-13

Abstract: International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs) have played critical roles in improving the quality of primary health care in ordinary time and, indeed, responding to epidemic crises in developing countries. Due to a lack of empirical research for effectiveness of their responding activities, the legitimacy and accountability of nonprofits’ engagement in the health crisis as a critical responder is doubted. This paper aims to examine the effectiveness of INGOs in a context of managing a fatal epidemic outbreak of Ebola in Sierra Leone during May–November, 2014; building healthcare infrastructures, providing medical supplies, educating local residents, and training response staffs. The analysis results show that development of healthcare infrastructures and provision of medical supplies have been significantly effective in terms of decreasing the severity of the crisis in chiefdoms. The findings imply that policy tools, which allow INGOs to enter to the field in a timely manner, can improve the effectiveness of INGOs’ responses in current and future epidemic outbreaks in developing countries where people suffer from a lack of health infrastructures.

Keywords: international nongovernmental organization; public health emergency responses; Ebola Outbreak; Sierra Leone (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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