Who We Are
We are Médecins Sans Frontières
Our teams act fast to provide medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from healthcare. MSF is made up of tens of thousands of health professionals, logistic and administrative staff, bound together by our charter and our commitment to providing essential healthcare to those in need, regardless of race, gender, or religion.
MSF was founded in 1971 by a group of journalists and doctors. Today we are a worldwide movement of nearly 68,000 people.
We are a global movement
Our actions are guided by medical ethics and the principles of impartiality, independence and neutrality. We are a worldwide, non-profit organisation, that operates on self-governance principles.
Providing quality care
At MSF, we reject the idea that resource-limited countries deserve third-rate medical services. We are committed to providing high-quality care to patients and we advocate for affordable, high-quality medicines.
Support from people, not political interests
We rely on the generous support of more than seven million individual donors worldwide. Over 97 per cent of our funds comes from private donations, freeing us from any political affiliations and allowing us to act quickly to save lives.
Stronger together
Our strength lies in our staff. With nearly 50,000 staff worldwide—from health workers to logisticians, surgeons to administrative staff, we’re able to respond quickly to emergencies because of the broad network of committed individuals that make up the MSF global movement. In 2022 we employed over 40,000 locally hired staff who worked together with internationally mobile staff, of which 129 were from Australia and New Zealand.