Please refer to the attached file.
As delivered
Excellencies, Distinguished Representatives,
Thank you, Dr. Tedros [Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO)], and thank you for hosting us today and for your leadership alongside the fantastic WHO team. It is also great to welcome Ambassador [Paul Empole Losoko] Efambe [Permanent Representative] of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) [to the United Nations Office at Geneva] and so many colleagues from across the IASC [Inter-Agency Standing Committee].
Thank you all for joining us.
I also want, before underlining a couple of points on Ebola, to highlight that we will be issuing at the end of the week a Flash Appeal on Nepal, and, as you know, colleagues across the humanitarian family are responding right now to that crisis.
You’ve heard, colleagues, the [Secretary-General] sounding the alarm on the Ebola outbreak. You’ve heard Dr. Tedros and I on it repeatedly in recent weeks.
We need to turn that alarm into action.
As Tedros has said, this is the fastest-growing epidemic on record, hitting a country already in a profound humanitarian crisis. Nearly 11 million people already needing support. And with conflict uprooting families, acute food insecurity, and malnutrition at vast levels.
The response is growing, has been scaled up, but the virus is, as you’ve heard, moving faster. And unless we scale up urgently, more lives will be lost and the threat will grow.
The outbreak is now spread across six provinces, including areas where insecurity is limiting our access and where health systems are already weak.
This makes it harder to detect cases, trace contacts, treat patients, and to build trust.
Women and girls, as we’ll hear more of shortly, especially pregnant women, are disproportionately affected.
Children are losing parents and caregivers, making them even more vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking.
So, it is not simply a health emergency. It is also a humanitarian emergency layered onto many existing humanitarian emergencies.
Excellencies,
I commend the Government of the DRC for its leadership, with strong support from WHO, Africa CDC, and through the partnership with the IASC members, and others represented here today.
We activated on June 9, we have strengthened the response.
Damien Mama, the Humanitarian Coordinator, and Julien Harneis, the Senior Ebola Coordinator, will give you a sense of what it looks like on the front lines.
Operational hubs in Bunia and Beni are up and running. Humanitarian financing has been mobilized. And with empowered leadership of Damien, our Humanitarian Coordinator, we have committed, of course, in the context of the Humanitarian Reset, to ensure that we have that single coordinated response behind the [Humanitarian Coordinator’s] leadership.
But we cannot respond incrementally to an epidemic, which is now growing exponentially.
So, we need a sustained, large-scale operation that gets ahead of the virus. Expanded treatment capacity. More safe and dignified burial teams. Better access for humanitarian workers and supplies.
We cannot fight Ebola in isolation. People need functioning health services, clean water, sanitation, food, protection, and livelihoods. Above all, they need trust.
Excellencies,
The people delivering this response are taking extraordinary risks.
More than 40 health workers have died from Ebola while working to save others. Treatment centres and ambulances have been attacked.
These front-line responders must be protected.
Preparedness efforts have increased in neighboring countries, particularly South Sudan and the Central African Republic, both already confronting severe humanitarian emergencies.
Last week, WHO declared Uganda free of this outbreak after 42 days with no reported Ebola cases.
Excellencies,
The revised 2026 DRC Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan calls for $2.1 billion, including $300 million for Ebola-related activities across the humanitarian family.
More than $1 billion has been secured, but half of the funding gap remains. The virus is not waiting for us to find it.
Through the Central Emergency Response Fund, with thanks to our generous donors to that fund, I have allocated over $57 million for response and preparedness in the DRC and neighboring countries. And of course, country-based and regional pooled funding is also stepping up.
To close, Excellencies,
Last week, the Secretary-General called out the indifference surrounding this crisis. He is right to do so.
An outbreak spreading at this speed should command the world’s attention.
The DRC is doing its part – the international community must do ours.
So, my appeals are straightforward.
First, use your influence collectively and individually to keep this crisis where it should be on the international agenda. Do not wait for Ebola to cross borders before you act.
Secondly, we need access. Humanitarian personnel and supplies must move safely and swiftly into and within the DRC. We need borders kept open. We need obstacles to the response removed.
And thirdly, the funding. We need increased, flexible support for the Ebola response and the wider humanitarian operation.
Time is not on our side.
We have the experience, the tools, extraordinary people risking their lives to stop this epidemic.
What we need now is political will, access, and resources.
We have beaten Ebola before. And we can do it again.
Thank you, excellencies.