History and Milestones

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was founded in 1971 in France by a group of doctors and journalists in the wake of war and famine in Biafra, Nigeria. Their aim was to establish an independent organisation that focuses on delivering emergency medicine aid quickly, effectively and impartially. 

Three hundred volunteers made up the organisation when it was founded: doctors, nurses and other staff, including the 13 founding doctors and journalists. 

MSF was created in the belief that all people should have access to healthcare regardless of gender, race, religion, creed or political affiliation, and that people’s medical needs outweigh respect for national boundaries. MSF’s principles of action are described in our charter, which established a framework for our activities. 

Milestones of MSF adapting to crises 

Over more than 50 years, field workers of MSF faced dilemmas and needed to make choices like you do. We adapted to different situations and strived to provide emergency responses with limited resources. 

Below we have listed some of the most important moments from our history in six themes, which helped to define our purpose and to show how we could overcome all kinds of obstacles that can get in the way of the relief of suffering. There are stories about extreme disasters that have hit the world. Some of them natural, many of them the result of human folly or cruelty. We were certainly not able to answer all of the challenges very successfully. Some of them were far too big for one medical aid organisation to deal with. Some are issues that we are still struggling with.