The Role Of International Organization's & INGO'S In Combating Global Pandemic

Ebola is a deadly disease that caused a lot of concerns not only to the countries affected but the entire world.It's on this basis that this research sought to assess the contributions of international actors to the containment of the Ebola virus outbreak in Sierra Leone.The researcher examined the role of two prominent International Organization and Non-governmental organization UNICEF and MSF and their roles towards the containment of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone.The study is a Qualitative Case Study that seeks assess the roles of UNICEF and MSF as International Organizations known for their commitment to and involvement in humanitarian emergency response activities across the world and the specific role they played to help contain the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone.In the bid to answer these questions raised in the research,the researcher made use of secondary data from previous reports from organizations websites,masters and PhD thesis,to review literature on international health and public health emergencies.The collection and selection approach was used to collect scrutinize and select relevant documents that are related to the topic.The theoretical framework position of this study is Neo-Institutional Theory.This theory suggests that organizations necessarily reference and imitate one another in their practices and structures.This study explore what DiMaggio and Powell(1983)call "representational pressure," a label for an organization's imitation of other successful organizations as a response to uncertainty.Applying institutional theory,the primary focus/objective is to showcase the positive role played by international organisations like MSF and UNICEF in mitigating global pandemic which have attempt in answering the research question.Specifically this study empirically present whether decision-makers deal with uncertainty by following the practices of other organizations,particularly those they view as successful.Decision-making and the role of non-governmental organisation do not take place in a vacuum.As such,this study further explores how executives at NGOs and non-profit organizations understand and talk about their role in complex political emergence by surveying the work of other organizations and their strategic decision-making processes.Institutional arguments rely not on aggregations of individual action,or on patterned interaction games between individuals,but on "institutions that structure action".Institutions are emergent,"higher-order" factors above the individual level,constraining or constituting the interests and political participation of actors "without requiring repeated collective mobilization or authoritative intervention to achieve these regularities".All three forms of institutionalists define institutions broadly.Political and historical institutionalists see institutions as formal or informal procedures,routines,norms,and conventions in the organizational structure of the polity or the political economy,whereas sociological institutionalists add cognitive scripts,moral templates and symbol systems that may reside at supra-state or supra-organizational levels.This study examines the actions taken by the government of Sierra Leone on combating the Ebola Virus Disease(EVD)since the EVD outbreak was announced in 2014 to 2016.UNICEF's response did not sufficiently rely on knowledge management and the organization remained only partially prepared for future public health emergencies.UNICEF did,however,make significant efforts to learn by doing.Their public health response made a useful contribution to stopping the transmission of Ebola,most notably through community engagement,isolation and care activities,and the large-scale delivery of supplies and WASH support.UNICEF's response neither promptly nor adequately addressed Ebola's serious secondary humanitarian consequences and specific effects on children.UNICEF's contributions relied significantly on an innovative community-based response implementation model that involved targeted actions at the community level to generate community behaviour change.They provided the strategic direction needed to stop Ebola transmission,but its leadership was hampered by inadequate institutional arrangements,performance management and information analysis.Basically,UNICEF's mobilization of financial,human and supply capacities enabled a large-scale response and made strong material contributions to effectiveness but struggled with some challenges.An early intervention of MSF in Sierra Leone on the other hand would have been more beneficial.Constraints related to capacity and internal strategic disagreement delayed the decision for MSF presence in Sierra Leone.It is possible that an earlier arrival may not have been able to be suitably staffed,but there is regret from all actors,that the announcement of Ebola as an outbreak in Sierra Leone was delayed and underrated as well.The great effort was appreciated and embedded MSF's reputation as being the experts in this field of work.The MSF crisis management structures employed in this outbreak had their strengths and weaknesses.MSF maintained an excellent reputation in its response in Sierra Leone.The demands were intensive and sustained over months.MSF played pivotal played role in issued sufficient skills,e.g.in clinical knowledge,networking,negotiation,advocacy and coordination activities which were vital in this multi-actor,rapidly evolving crisis.Collaboration across missions in the field was considered successful.With all its expertise and recognition as the world's leading independent medical International non-governmental organization,MSF do not have the authority to pronounce an outbreak as a global epidemic as they only advise and act upon the declarations from the world health organization which is the organ of the united nations that is charged with responsibility of manning the global health governance.This research identifies and outline the successes and challenges of both UNICEF and MSF in their responses to a global health pandemic like Ebola and as well put out some findings and proffer some policy recommendations to the government for future outbreaks.