Accountability is a crosscutting pillar of the post-2015 development agenda. It is crucial to delivering development effectiveness, along with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and their means of implementation. Among various frameworks and global partnerships for development, the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation stands out in terms of devising ways to hold aid partners accountable.

More than 30 Ugandans—among them doctors, nurses, health educators and social workers—have gone to West Africa since August to join the effort to control the ongoing Ebola epidemic. These Ugandan health workers have direct experience with such outbreaks. Over the last 15 years, Uganda has had four Ebola outbreaks (2000, 2007, 2011 and 2012). In each instance, the country’s health system was able to contain the outbreak to the initial site.

Over the last few months, newspaper headlines have been filled with reports on the dire need for health care workers, protective equipment, and treatment centers in responding to the Ebola outbreak ravaging Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. While there is certainly a pressing need for logistical and medical support, there is also an urgent need for community education informed by West African cultural norms. Understanding these norms, such as funeral rituals and gender roles, assists in halting the spread of the virus.