Médecins Sans Frontières MSF (MSF) is an international humanitarian aid organisation that provides emergency medical assistance to populations in danger in more than 70 countries.



MSF works in rehabilitation of hospitals and dispensaries, vaccination programmes and water and sanitation projects. MSF also works in remote health care centres, slum areas and provides training of local personnel. All this is done with the objective of rebuilding health structures to acceptable levels.



Raising Awareness



In carrying out humanitarian assistance,



- MSF seeks also to raise awareness of crisis situations;



- MSF acts as a witness and will speak out, either in private or in public about the plight of populations in danger for whom MSF works.



In doing so, MSF sets out to alleviate human suffering, to protect life and health and to restore and ensure respect for the human beings and their fundamental human rights.



It is part of MSF's work to address any violations of basic human rights encountered by field teams, violations perpetrated or sustained by political actors. It does so by confronting the responsible actors themselves, by putting pressure on them through mobilisation of the international community and by issuing information publicly.



In order to prevent compromise or manipulation of MSF's relief activities, MSF maintains neutrality and independance from individual governments. The organisation also tries to ensure that the majority of funds raised for its work comes directly from contributions from the general public. In this way, MSF guarantees equal access to its humanitarian assistance.