perverse effects and limits of aid

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

We often hear it said within MSF that the aid system is unable to provide effective relief, or that the aid system’s ability to provide aid is in decline. These statements, which suggest that MSF is itself outside the "system", are based on the very real number of people in relief operations who need help but do not receive it, or do not receive enough of it. 

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.

Michaël Neuman's review of "Medical Humanitarianism: Ethnographies of practice" edited by Sharon Abramowitz and Catherine Panter-Brick (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015)

Interview with Jean-Hervé Bradol and Marc Le Pape. The book is published by Manchester University Press and will be out in January 2017.

Throughout the 1990s, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was forced to face the challenges posed by the genocide of Rwandan Tutsis and a succession of major outbreaks of political violence in Rwanda and its neighbouring countries.

Interview with Michaël Neuman and Fabrice Weissman, research directors at Crash. On Wednesday 28 September, MSF is invited to attend a UN Security Council briefing on resolution 2286, adopted in May 2016, which strongly condemns attacks against medical personnel and establishments in conflict situations.

A few days after the start of the operation 'Protective edge', Jonathan Whittall, Head of Humanitarian Analysis at MSF posted an opinion in which he questions MSF's role in Gaza. Michaël Neuman, Director of research at MSF Crash responds.

We often hear it said within MSF that the aid system is unable to provide effective relief, or that the aid system's ability to provide aid is in decline. Rony Brauman and Michaël Neuman aim at exploring MSF's relationship with the aid system, while showing how the ambitions of the aid system itself have evolved.

For a few months now, the world's response to the organized expulsion of the Muslim community out of the Central African Republic (CAR) can best be described as strikingly mute.

This case study is describing the difficulties and dilemmas met by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) during the genocide of Rwandan Tutsis in April, May and June 1994.

This case study is describing the constraints and dilemmas met by MSF when confronted with camps under the tight control of "refugee leaders" responsible for the genocide of the Rwandan Tutsis from April to June 1994.