Call to African Heads of State: Put Technology at the Backbone of Ebola Response
AETRF releases formal recommendations urging national governments to designate technology leads, establish data centers, and deploy emergency communication channels as core pillars of the Ebola response strategy.
Read full statement →As Ebola continues to spread across West Africa, the Africa Emergency Technology Response Forum (AETRF) — an informal network of African technology professionals on the continent and in the Diaspora — has issued an urgent call to African Heads of State to integrate technology infrastructure as a backbone of the emergency response.
The forum's recommendations center on three critical actions: appointing a national technology lead to coordinate all digital interventions, establishing centralized data and call centers for real-time surveillance and community outreach, and launching multi-language emergency health information channels via SMS, radio, and social media.
"The current response lacks the technological coordination needed to save lives at scale," said Chris Uwaje, a technology advocate from Nigeria and one of the convening voices. "African tech professionals are ready to deploy these systems — we need governments to authorize and support this work."
AETRF has already begun collaborating with health ministries, telecommunications companies, NGOs, and tech firms across affected nations to pilot these interventions.