Notes / Human Security
13 May 2015
The critical role of Humanitarian critique
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Bertrand Taithe, Executive Director – Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, Juliano Fiori, Senior Humanitarian Affairs Adviser and Michaël Neuman, Director of Studies at MSF-Crash.
In November 2014, the Guardian published an article which considered the role played by Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) in response to the spread of Ebola in West Africa. Although complimentary of MSF’s reflective approach in response to a ‘new’ medical event, the article quotes a Reuters interview with Dr Jean-Hervé Bradol, in which the former president of the French section of the medical NGO bemoans his organisation’s delayed and inappropriate response.
A number of publications, in the scientific press in particular, had already presented criticisms of the treatment of patients affected by the virus but the naming of MSF by one of its own members caused consternation within the organisation. A fiery debate ensued. That this debate was taking place hardly filtered into the public domain until January 2015, when the French newspaper Libération published an interview with Rony Brauman, who spoke about it openly. Like Bradol, Brauman is both a former MSF-France president and a member of MSF-CRASH – a unit dedicated to promoting critical reflection on the practices of MSF in order to improve them.