Articles

Aid organisations have been held hostage to the showdown between the Sudanese government and the international community.

This article was originally published in Humanitarian Exchange Magazine #67 in September 2016. In this paper, Angélique Muller and Michaël Neuman attempt to explore the lessons learnt through examining the decisions as well as the difficulties MSF encountered in its provision of assistance to migrants in Grande-Synthe.

Rony Brauman reviews the myths and mechanisms governing the deployment of international aid following the Southeast Asian tsunami in December 2004.

In 1993, Médecins Sans Frontières left Somalia and denounced the methods of UN troops who were violating the very humanitarian principles in whose name they intervened.

MSF is an independent organisation that carefully protects its autonomy. In this article, Xavier Crombé draws the connection between this founding principle and the issue of security for humanitarian actors.

In the context of emergency appeals in the Horn of Africa, Rony Brauman recalls the contemporary definition of a famine. While recognising the progress made in major crisis response mechanisms, he questions the alarmist attitude of the UN.

For the publication of the Dictionnaire d'Ethique et de philosophie morale, the former president of Médecins Sans Frontières, Rony Brauman, offers a definition of humanitarian aid. 

Fabrice Weissman highlights the political factors at work behind the threat of famine - which, though very real, cannot be fully explained by natural causes - and casts a critical eye on the relief system, as well.

Fabrice Weissman looks at the major stages of the Darfur conflict since 2003 from the perspective of a humanitarian medical organisation. He questions the predominant reading of this crisis, and cautions against the illusions of international armed intervention in the region.

Behind the question, "Is humanitarianism a commitment?", Rony Brauman warns against the use of humanitarianism in the public arena. Investing the political realm with the moral expectations of a better world, humanitarianism might unintentionally be helping to make "survival of the fittest" more palatable.

Based on MSF's experience in responding to epidemics, Jean-Hervé Bradol describes the risks of spending precious time and energy on trying to delay the spread of the epidemic rather than on the case management of large numbers of sick people.

In this chronicle "Alternatives Internationales", Rony Brauman discusses the return of using community health workers as primary access points for healthcare, in the recommendations of the WHO and practices of some governments.