High-level UNDP officials are embarking on a mission to Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Senegal, to boost efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak, while helping to preserve essential services and livelihoods.

The trip will include site visits to Ebola treatment centres, as well as meetings with Government authorities, partner UN Agencies, NGOs and Civil Society Organizations involved in halting the spread of the disease.

The team, which includes Assistant Secretary-General Magdy Martínez-Solimán and Deputy Assistant Administrator of UNDP, Ruby Sandhu-Rojon, began their visit on Monday, October 6 and will end on October 14, 2014.

This was contained in a statement issued by the UNDP copied to the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday.

The team will as part of their mission galvanize UN coordination efforts to combat the Ebola crisis and assess UNDP’s work on the ground.

“The crisis is continuing to cause not only immediate health and humanitarian impacts, but also increasingly crippling social and economic effects, breaking trust and social cohesion, draining development resources and further impoverishing isolated and vulnerable communities,” the statement noted.

Scheduled field trips to affected communities will assess more closely UNDP’s work on the ground, which includes a vast public information campaign and provision of medical kits for Ebola survivors in Sierra Leone, and improving access to services in Liberia.

Martínez-Solimán and Sandhu-Rojon will as part of the mission hold talks with Special Representative and head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) Anthony Banbury.

At the end of their visit, Martinez-Solimán and Sandhu-Rojon will join Abdoulaye Mar Dieye, Assistant Secretary-General and Director of UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Africa, who will be mobilizing international partners and the UN system in support of the response.

In his capacity as Chair of the Regional UNDP for Africa, Dieye will also convene a special meeting of all Regional Country Directors in Dakar, Senegal.