Jean-Hervé Jézéquel

This study started out looking at the shift to a post-conflict situation in Katanga; the intention was to describe how MSF’s sections negotiated the transition from war to post-war.

Four years after the Nigerian crisis, many things have changed in the nutrition field. This Cahier du Crash aims at considering this evolution and explore new possibilities for action for MSF.

In 2008, Southern Ethiopia was the epicentre of a vast nutritional intervention: more than 100,000 malnourished children received assistance from a mix of actors including both international actors and local health facilities.

Analyzing the same event from different perspectives is a favourite trick of historians to spice up their narratives. It also works pretty well to describe humanitarian interventions.

Twenty years after the charity concerts for the Sahel Nigerien politicians, institutional donors, aid agencies and humanitarian organisations clashed on the nature and substance of the crisis affecting Niger in 2005. Identifying the causes of, and adequate responses to, the situation also gave rise to profound disagreements. Having set up their most ambitious emergency nutrition programme to date, Médecins Sans Frontières found itself at the forefront of these controversies.

The much publicized figure of the child soldier in Africa is placed in context in this historiographical survey: the author ties it to the general subject of children in war – which has affected America and Europe at different times – and reveals the necessity of developing a history of child status in Africa.