Who is MSF

MSF introduction

Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is one of the world's leading independent organisations for medical humanitarian aid, giving quality medical care to people caught in crisis regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation. Every day, more than 30,000 MSF field staff across 74 countries provide assistance to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from healthcare or natural disasters.

In 2018 MSF worked in worked in 446 projects across 74 countries. Thanks to our 6.3 million donors we were able to treat millions of patients

In 2018, MSF carried out over 11 million outpatient consultations and admitted over 750,000 patients. MSF teams assisted more than 300,000 births, including caesarean sections, vaccinated around 1.5 million people against measles and meningitis, and treated almost 2.4 million people for malaria. There were over 74,000 severely malnourished children admitted to inpatient feeding programmes, over 400,000 individual mental health consultations and over 100,000 major surgical interventions.

Formed in 1971, by a group of doctors and journalists aiming to establish an independent organisation focused on emergency medical care and speaking out about the causes of human suffering, MSF's work is based on the humanitarian principles of medical ethics and remains committed to bearing witness and speaking out.

Our strength lies in our teams, from health staff, to logisticians and administrative staff. In 2018 we hired nearly 40,000 staff locally and thousands more left on field assignments abroad. MSF has 21 main national offices and 10 specialised organisations, which take charge of specific activities, such as humanitarian relief supplies. There are five operational centres which directly control field projects, deciding when, where and what aid is necessary and when to end a programme. The primary functions of the remaining offices are to recruit volunteers, raise funds and advocate on behalf of populations in danger to maintain MSF's financial independence.

MSF field staff include doctors, nurses, administrators, epidemiologists, laboratory technicians, mental health professionals, logistics and water and sanitation experts. The majority of our teams are made up of national field staff from the countries where the crises are occurring with ten per cent made up of international field staff. All of MSF's members agree to honour the principles set out in the MSF Charter.