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About us

Who We Are

Cholera intervention in South Kivu

Learn about our mission, our charter and principles, and who we are.

How we work

See what triggers an intervention and how supply and logistics allow our teams to respond quickly.

How we're run

Discover our governance and what it means to be an association. Find a quick visual guide to our offices around the world.

Reports and financials

Read through our annual financial and activity reports, and find out about where our funds come from and how they are spent.

Contact us

Visit this section to get in touch with our offices around the world.

What we do

Médecins Sans Frontières brings medical humanitarian assistance to victims of conflict, natural disasters, epidemics or healthcare exclusion.

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Medical Activities

MSF Measles Vaccination in DRC

Learn about how, why, and where MSF teams respond to different diseases around the world, and the challenges we face in providing treatment.

Crisis Settings

Aden besieged

Learn about the different contexts and situations in which MSF teams respond to provide care, including war and natural disaster settings, and how and why we adapt our activities to each.

COVID-19 Project in Mons, Belgium

Learn about our response and our work in depth on specific themes and events.

Where we work

In more than 70 countries, Médecins Sans Frontières provides medical humanitarian assistance to save lives and ease the suffering of people in crisis situations.

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Africa

Asia & Pacific

Middle East & North Africa

Middle East & North Africa

Europe & Central Asia

Europe & Central Asia

The Americas

MSF Websites

A Global Network

Our offices around the world

Our offices around the world

Other Sites

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MSF Association

Our staff “own” and manage MSF, making sure that we stay true to our mission and principles, through the MSF Associations.

Access Campaign

We set up the MSF Access Campaign in 1999 to push for access to, and the development of, life-saving and life-prolonging medicines, diagnostic tests and vaccines for people in our programmes and beyond.

Staff blogs

Read stories from our staff as they carry out their work around the world.

Patient blogs

Hear directly from the inspirational people we help as they talk about their experiences dealing with often neglected, life-threatening diseases.

CRASH

Based in Paris, CRASH conducts and directs studies and analysis of MSF actions. They participate in internal training sessions and assessment missions in the field.

UREPH

Based in Geneva, UREPH (or Research Unit) aims to improve the way MSF projects are implemented in the field and to participate in critical thinking on humanitarian and medical action.

ARHP

Based in Barcelona, ARHP documents and reflects on the operational challenges and dilemmas faced by the MSF field teams.

MSF Analysis

Based in Brussels, MSF Analysis intends to stimulate reflection and debate on humanitarian topics organised around the themes of migration, refugees, aid access, health policy and the environment in which aid operates.

MSF Supply

This logistical and supply centre in Brussels provides storage of and delivers medical equipment, logistics and drugs for international purchases for MSF missions.

MSF Logistique

This supply and logistics centre in Bordeaux, France, provides warehousing and delivery of medical equipment, logistics and drugs for international purchases for MSF missions.

Amsterdam Procurement Unit

This logistical centre in Amsterdam purchases, tests, and stores equipment including vehicles, communications material, power supplies, water-processing facilities and nutritional supplements.

Southern Africa Medical Unit

SAMU provides strategic, clinical and implementation support to various MSF projects with medical activities related to HIV and TB. This medical unit is based in Cape Town, South Africa.

Kenya Supply Unit

Regional logistic centre for the whole East Africa region

Brazilian Medical Unit

BRAMU specialises in neglected tropical diseases, such as dengue and Chagas, and other infectious diseases. This medical unit is based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

MSF Medical Guidelines

Our medical guidelines are based on scientific data collected from MSF’s experiences, the World Health Organization (WHO), other renowned international medical institutions, and medical and scientific journals.

MSF Field Research

Find important research based on our field experience on our dedicated Field Research website.

Manson Unit

The Manson Unit is a London, UK-based team of medical specialists who provide medical and technical support, and conduct research for MSF.

Epicentre

Providing epidemiological expertise to underpin our operations, conducting research and training to support our goal of providing medical aid in areas where people are affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or excluded from health care.

Evaluation Units

Evaluation Units have been established in Vienna, Stockholm, and Paris, assessing the potential and limitations of medical humanitarian action, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of our medical humanitarian work.

LGBTQI+ Inclusion in Health Settings

MSF works with LGBTQI+ populations in many settings over the last 25-30 years. LGBTQI+ people face healthcare disparities with limited access to care and higher disease rates than the general population.

LUXOR

The Luxembourg Operational Research (LuxOR) unit coordinates field research projects and operational research training, and provides support for documentation activities and routine data collection.

Intersectional Benchmarking Unit

The Intersectional Benchmarking Unit collects and analyses data about local labour markets in all locations where MSF employs people.

MSF Academy for Healthcare

To upskill and provide training to locally-hired MSF staff in several countries, MSF has created the MSF Academy for Healthcare.

Humanitarian Law

This Guide explains the terms, concepts, and rules of humanitarian law in accessible and reader-friendly alphabetical entries.

MSF Paediatric Days

The MSF Paediatric Days is an event for paediatric field staff, policy makers and academia to exchange ideas, align efforts, inspire and share frontline research to advance urgent paediatric issues of direct concern for the humanitarian field.

MSF Foundation

The MSF Foundation aims to create a fertile arena for logistics and medical knowledge-sharing to meet the needs of MSF and the humanitarian sector as a whole.

DNDi

A collaborative, patients’ needs-driven, non-profit drug research and development organisation that is developing new treatments for neglected diseases, founded in 2003 by seven organisations from around the world.

Who do we turn to (13) — Graduation to become a middle income country might bring extra headaches for ministries of health. Market logic gains importance, also in health. Health services, medical supplies and medicines have to be procured at higher costs. Tighter trade regulations apply with states put under economic and political pressure (from richer countries, donors, and pharmaceutical companies alike). This is especially true for countries upgraded to Middle Income Country status. Additionally, these countries face a significant reduction in international aid regardless the outstanding needs. This double negative effect creates gaps in health care. Often NGOs including MSF are asked to step in to help to fill the gaps.

Gallery: Financing for Development Conference

War in Gaza:: find out how we're responding

War in Gaza: find out how we're responding

Photo Story10 July 2015

A series of 14 cartoons depicting a range of issues in the currently dominant approach to development.

Erosion of health solidarity (01) — Health was at the core of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) and important progress was made to fight ill health and save lives. In the current Sustainable Development Goals framework that will cover the period 2015 – 2030, health has been relegated to only one of 17 goals. In a harsh competition for a stagnating aid envelope, health and other social sectors are likely to lose out. Considering the unfinished business of the health MDGs and major health challenges still facing many countries, health should remain high on the priority list in the development funding discussions.

increased national health expenditure and health lost in the mix (02) — Given the current trend in discussions around development aid, countries will need to grapple with stagnating or shrinking Official Development Assistance to cover a wider array of sectors and objectives. An unhealthy competition between sectors and even within the health arena could ensue, with health priorities pitted against one another.

Weakening of civil society (03) — In many countries, civil society groups play a critical role in health care delivery through direct service provision, voicing people’s concerns and needs, monitoring service quality and access, demanding better services and rights to their country’s institutions and authorities, standing by vulnerable and marginalized people. Today international funding dwindles and is increasingly funnelled through and towards central authorities and government systems, with the prime aim to build the capacity of the state and its systems. Without support, the capacity of civil society and community-based associations will decrease, despite their key role in reaching and protecting health gains.

Theory vs reality (04) — Effective strategies to improve people’s lives and health cannot be captured by political concepts and economic modelling only. They need to be rooted in and fed by the reality at clinic and population level. The discussions at the Financing for Development (FfD) conference in Addis and later about Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in New York should come up with more than new concepts and terms. Theoretic concepts- however lofty- will fail to make a difference without a critical reality check.

Similar needs different aid (05) — Health needs and diseases are not bound by either country borders or income classification. Yet, aid allocation differs greatly according to the income status of a country, with middle-income countries assumed to be less in need of official development assistance, including for health. To make up for the shortfall, user fees and increased out-of-pocket payments policies are in some cases reintroduced by governments, despite being proven barriers of access to healthcare.

Long term vs immediate needs (06) — The highly volatile intermediary transition period for countries moving up the economy ladder and changing category is too often grossly disregarded by economists and politicians who allocate development funding, with their focus primarily set on the long-term (system strengthening, resilience, etc.). Access to health care and people's health will be affected if immediate existing needs are overlooked.

Inanity of aid allocation (07) — Development priorities for the next 15 years and beyond must be based on the reality of the world we live in. This requires looking at poverty and health needs rather than simply Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, which often does not reflect the reality for people on the ground. Only small increase in GNI can change a classification upward and is often based on overoptimistic economic modelling, discarding economic fluctuations, setbacks and limitations in public health expenditure. Countries that graduate as Middle Income Country can’t automatically and swiftly translate new revenues into health expenditures.

So many categories/labels (08) — In recent years, the convergence of the financial crisis and a reduction in Official Development Assistance –including for health, with a higher number of countries moving to middle income status, has conveniently placed the assumption of middle-income countries or MIC’s ability to swiftly and automatically meet the needs of their population on their own at the centre of the post-2015 development agenda and forthcoming Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Diversity in MICs (09) — The present predominant use of country income (Gross National Income or GNI) by donors to define aid allocation, including for health, is not fit for purpose and potentially damaging since it isn’t based on the population needs, fails to reflect inequality, disease profile or access to health care. It is also delusional to think that one policy can fit all given the glaring diversities between countries falling into the macro-economic categories. The group includes Middle income countries as diverse as China, Mauritania, India or the Republic of Congo. Also the major differences within countries are hidden by using a country’s average GNI per capita.

Punishing success (10) — The funds allocated to health through the Development Assistance for Health (DAH) and some key Global Health Initiatives such as the Global Fund to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) or Gavi, the Vaccination Alliance, are starting to bear the brunt of the division of the stagnating aid envelope, affecting their capacity to fulfil their mandate in saving lives and combatting main diseases. In particular, restrictions to eligibility and level of funding based on country’s average GNI per capita are problematic. Global health Initiatives are meant to tackle disease and health needs globally, where ever the ill people are.

Possible reverse in health (11) — The majority (over 70%) of the world’s poorest now reside in Middle Income Countries (MICs) which also face the highest the global burden of disease on the planet, including three of the main killer diseases (HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria). MICs frequently fact a triple burden of disease: The communicable and non-communicable diseases, as well as the global health threats. Despite improved income, many Middle Income Countries are still not able to take on the huge burden of these health risks on their own.

trading of health (12) — After the 2008 financial crisis, there has been a clear re-emergence of policies or donor trends favouring allocations that can give better "return of investments", such as more loans compared to grants. There is an increasing ‘commodification’ of health, linked to trade. Health services, medical supplies and medicines are seen as commodities and markets from which you can extract profit, impacting access. More and more, people using health services are seen as consumers rather than patients. Economic logic does not prioritise the needs of the most vulnerable or those who need health care most.

Who do we turn to (13) — Graduation to become a middle income country might bring extra headaches for ministries of health. Market logic gains importance, also in health. Health services, medical supplies and medicines have to be procured at higher costs. Tighter trade regulations apply with states put under economic and political pressure (from richer countries, donors, and pharmaceutical companies alike). This is especially true for countries upgraded to Middle Income Country status. Additionally, these countries face a significant reduction in international aid regardless the outstanding needs. This double negative effect creates gaps in health care. Often NGOs including MSF are asked to step in to help to fill the gaps.

Equity, yes if needs taken into account (14) — Equity is becoming central in development discussions, which is a welcomed trend. But equity can’t be limited to equal distribution and be blind to the actual needs. Inequity cannot be captured only through the lense of the country you are in. Real equity is assistance according to needs, where ever y