Médecins Sans Frontières

Address of Organization

Rue de Lausanne 78 CP 116 – 1211 Geneva 21 Switzerland www.msf.org

Introduction

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF – Doctors without Borders) is an independent humanitarian medical aid agency that provides emergency medical assistance to populations in immediate danger as well as in the emergency’s aftermath.

Brief History

The initiative to create MSF emerged from the experiences of a number of French medical professionals in two emergency situations: one, the great flood in Eastern Pakistan (later Bangladesh) and two, the Biafran War in Nigeria at the end of the 1960s. Bernard Kouchner and other medical colleagues who had volunteered to help in these emergencies were struck by the miserable conditions of local hospitals and the impediments of bureaucratic procedures and principles of neutrality. In 1971, following their return to France, they created the humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to bypass what they believed was an international aid...