Médecins Sans Frontières

Description

Médecins Sans Frontières, known in English as Doctors Without Borders, is an international, independent medical humanitarian organisation.

It provides medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters or exclusion from healthcare. Its teams include doctors, nurses, logisticians, administrators and other staff bound by a shared charter. Work is guided by medical ethics and the principles of impartiality, independence and neutrality. It is a non-profit, self-governed, member-based association.

MSF was founded in December 1971 in Paris by a group of doctors and journalists responding to war and famine in Biafra, Nigeria. Today it is a worldwide movement of more than 65,000 people of over 160 nationalities, working in more than 70 countries. Nearly all of its funding, about 98 per cent, comes from millions of individual private donors, which it says keeps it independent of political, economic or religious interests.

Beyond emergency medical care, MSF speaks out publicly about crises and abuses it witnesses, sometimes criticising governments or other organisations. It also runs an access campaign pushing for affordable medicines, diagnostics and vaccines, and supports linked bodies working on research, epidemiology, training and operational analysis. It publishes annual activity and financial reports as part of its commitment to transparency and accountability.