Position Paper Plan

Heading:
Committee Title: (Your name)
Topic: Ensure essential health service during COVID-19 pandemic
Country: The Democratic of the Congo
School: Wellspring International Bilingual School (WIS)

Topic Background: (70-100 words)

First, just do some of analyzation. What is essential health service? Essential health service is
extremely necessary service providing medical care. Pandemic is disease prevalent over a
whole country or the world. By these explaining, we can understand that our topic of our
conference today is about ways to ensure essential health service during COVID-19 pandemic.
The Covid-19 pandemic had a great impact on our country in particular and the whole world in
general. There there have been more than 32 million cases and more than 982 thousand people
have died so far from the epidemic. Globally, with COVID-19 we are seeing similar
disruptions to health services: amongst others, these are supply chain interruptions of essential
medicines and health products as well as the diversion of health workers to support the
COVID-19 response. COVID-19 also paused provision of certain services due to new social
distancing requirements being put in place, including immunization outreach and campaigns,
mass drug administrations, and anti-malaria bed net distributions. On the demand side,
anxiety, stigma, misinformation, limitations of movement, and increasing poverty reduce
health-seeking behavior and the utilization of routine and essential health services. If a long-
term solution is not found early, the epidemic will not only be prevented but also become
stronger, the number of deaths will be more and more and cause enormous damage to the
global economy.

Past International Action: (70-100 words)

I believe that other delegates who are sitting here today are wondering, what has UN said
about this situation? “A human rights lens puts everyone in the picture and ensures that no one is
left behind. Human rights responses can help beat the pandemic, putting a focus on the imperative
of healthcare for everyone.” Just by saying this, WHO gives global citizens a certain peace of mind,
that no matter how difficult it is, WHO will help our life get back to normal as soon as possible.
WHO helped countries to prepare and respond. With partners, WHO set up the COVID-19
Solidarity Response Fund, to ensure patients get the care they need, and frontline workers get
essential supplies and information; and to accelerate research and development of a vaccine
and treatments for all who need them. On 8 April, WHO launched a “UN COVID-19 Supply
Chain Task Force”, which aims to dramatically increase the supply of essential protective
equipment where it is needed to ensure vital supplies reach frontline health workers.

Country Policy: (70-100 words)

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, a national lockdown was instituted in the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) on the 31st of March 2020 and has yet to be fully lifted. On the first
of June the Ministry of Health of the DRC officially declared the eleventh Ebola outbreak in
the country. The DRC has also seen over 6000 deaths attributed to measles.This means that the
DRC is now fighting the spread of three major health outbreaks – Ebola, Measles and Covid-
19 simultaneously. The situation in many parts of the DRC is tense, with a number of lock
down extensions and violent enforcement of lockdown measures, general insecurity and
economic stress. In many areas there are also shortages of water, soap and personal protective
equipment. These factors coupled with the almost instantaneous need to shift to working
remotely has created a number of operational challenges for river defenders and their
organizations in the DRC. The DRC Government focused on the virus. President Félix
Tshisekedi’s government is understandably focused on its immediate response to COVID-19,
with MONUSCO helping the authorities limit the spread of the corona virus and alleviate the
socio-economic impact on the population. About pondering the future, in
extending MONUSCO’s mandate on 19 December 2019, the Council took note of an
assessment by an independent strategic review that an absolute minimum transition period of
three years will be needed for the Mission’s drawdown and exit. At the same time, the Council
invited the Secretariat to consider further reductions in MONUSCO’s military deployment –
currently capped at 14,000 troops – and its area of operations, while making the protection of
civilians the mission’s strategic priority

Possible Solutions: (70-100 words)

The World Bank Group Board of Executive Directors today approved $47 million in financing
from the International Development Association (IDA)* to fund the emergency response to the
COVID-19 epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and provide immediate
support to implement containment strategies, train medical personnel, and distribute
equipment to ensure rapid testing of potential cases and contact tracing, in accordance with
guidelines from the World Health Organization and the strategic response plan. The World
Bank Group is rolling out a $14 billion fast-track package to strengthen the COVID-19
response in developing countries and shorten the time to recovery. This immediate response
includes financing, policy advice and technical assistance to help countries cope with the
health and economic impacts of the pandemic. A lack of safe access to water and sanitation
makes DRC particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. The World Bank is providing water,
sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services as part of the pandemic respond.

Links: https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/04/1061412
https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/we-are-all-together-human-rights-and-covid-19-response-and
https://www.internationalrivers.org/news/blog-covid-19-impacts-in-the-democratic-republic-of-congo-crisis-to-opportunities-
series/