1. A government delegation of the Republic of Korea led by Deputy Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs Shin Dong-ik of the Foreign Ministry will attend the High Level Conference on Ebola in Brussels, Belgium, on March 3.

◦ The meeting will be co-hosted by the EU, such Ebola-affected countries as Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, and the UN.

◦ The meeting has been organized for the international community to review the current status of the Ebola outbreak in the affected countries; urge individual countries to make multifaceted contributions toward attaining the goal of no more new Ebola patients; and discuss mid- to long-term measures for the national and social reconstruction of the Ebola-affected countries.

2. The conference will bring together more than 130 high-level officials, including the Queen and the Prime Minister of Belgium, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Presidents of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Togo and other top-level officials, minister-level officials of the UK and France, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Ebola, and the Administrator of the UN Development Programme.

◦ Also among the participants will be the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and a minister-level delegate from China.

3. At the meeting, Deputy Minister Shin will elaborate on the ROK’s contribution to the international efforts to fight the Ebola epidemic, including its experience of dispatching medical workers to an Ebola-affected country and lessons it learned from the experience. Furthermore, he will convey the ROK’s willingness to help rebuild the health systems of Ebola-affected countries in its relatively strong development-related field, such as educating and training health workers.

◦ He will also bring attention to the plan of the ROK, the host country of the meeting of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) around September, to play a role in further stepping up international collaboration to move forward discussions on post-Ebola reconstruction.

4. On the sidelines of the multilateral meeting, Deputy Minister Shin will meet bilaterally with the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Ebola David Nabarro to discuss ways for the ROK and the UN to work together in the fight against the Ebola epidemic. The Deputy Minister will also meet with the deputy secretaries- general for political affairs and security policy of the NATO and the EU, both of whose headquarters are in Brussels, for discussions on ways for bilateral cooperation. 


              Spokesperson and Deputy Minister for Public Relations of MOFA

* unofficial translation