Israeli obstructions to aid and attacks on humanitarian workers: Médecins du Monde's year in the occupied Palestinian territory

How have NGOs been able to work and deliver humanitarian aid this past year in Gaza? While the International Court of Justice has warned of a risk of genocide, and war is escalating in the West Bank and Lebanon, Médecins du Monde has released a report exposing Israeli obstructions of aid and the attacks that the organisation and its humanitarian workers have been facing for a year in the occupied Palestinian territory.

In 2023, Médecins du Monde has continued its tradition of the last forty years, offering its services in a world of ongoing emergencies and growing uncertainty: social crises, health crises, violations of fundamental rights, natural disasters, and specifically conflict in Ukraine and Gaza… In response to continuing and emerging events, MdM continues to face these challenges thanks to its structure, management and the commitment of everyone involved.

As members of Doctors of the World-Médecins du Monde (MdM), we want a world where barriers to health have been overcome and where the right to health has been achieved.

This new Strategic Plan, seven years after the preceding one, marks the moment at which Médecins du Monde comes of age.

Health education is a key activity in any health promotion programme. Its goal is to enable everyone to make responsible choices relating to the behaviours that have an influence on their health and that of their community.

At least one in three women worldwide has been beaten, coerced into sex or abused in other ways, usually by her husband or another male family member. In France, one woman is beaten to death by her partner every four days. A survey conducted in Santiago, Chile, indicates that 80% of women admit to having experienced abuse, either by a male family member or their partner. In a study conducted in Bangladesh, 18% of female deaths result from injuries, intentional or not, and 52% occur during or immediately after pregnancy. The authors conclude that the underlying causes of these deaths are clearly social, and can be viewed as the result of men’s strict control over women’s sexual and reproductive lives.

Dans le cadre d’un projet transversal, sur la thématique des Violences Liées au Genre, Médecins du Monde France a conçu un guide thématique « Violences Faites aux Femmes : genre, culture et société ».

Central to the ethics and practice of Médecins du Monde for over thirty years, the issue of access to healthcare poses questions for our capacity as human beings and professionals to listen to and respect others. These same concerns and intentions are evident in the various approaches —community health, participative, de-westernising— developed at MdM. By increasing the professionalism of their activities, humanitarian organisations, including MdM, have successfully developed their logistics, human resources and communications. Today, professionalisation involves incorporating the ethical and operational added-value of social sciences, to improve the quality of international solidarity work.

The aim of the methodology documents outlined here is to familiarise aid workers, who are not specialists in social sciences, with qualitative data-collection, methods and analysis. These documents briefly show the steps and rules to follow in order to correctly apply and use the qualitative methods of data collection suggested.

The aim of the methodology documents outlined here is to familiarise aid workers, who are not specialists in social sciences, with qualitative data-collection.

The aim of this paper is to present the different steps and rules for the preparation and implementation of quantitative surveys which must be rigorously implemented in order to make full use of the results (i.e. capturing representative data, applicable to the entire population).

In both the North and the South, health risks related to harmful environments have increased dramatically in recent decades. According to the World Health Organization, one quarter of pathologies worldwide are related to avoidable environmental causes.

Le phénomène migratoire est universel. Partout dans le monde, des personnes cherchent une protection et une vie meilleure. Travailler auprès des exilés est un engagement de longue date pour Médecins du Monde. Des boat people perdus en mer de Chine dans les années 1980 à ceux qui tentent la traversée de la mer Méditerranée aujourd’hui, l’association ne cesse d’aider les personnes qui mettent leur vie en péril pour quitter leur pays. Elle soigne, accompagne et témoigne de l’intolérable.

Sensitive personnal data management

More than a 100 million people are driven into poverty because of catastrophic healthcare expenditures.