Skip to main content
Ahmed Darwesch and Rula Marahfeh
Médecins Sans Frontières

International Activity Report 2021

War in Gaza:: find out how we're responding
Learn more

Foreword

Since the creation of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) 50 years ago, our goal has been to alleviate people’s suffering and to provide medical care to those who need it most. 2021 was no exception. Despite the many challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, our teams carried out their work across more than 70 countries, in some of the hardest-to-reach regions of the world.  

While COVID-19 absorbed the attention and resources of many high-income countries, its direct and indirect effects were felt in places where health systems were already weak. We used our expertise in tackling disease epidemics to support countries struggling to deal with COVID-19, as well as other ongoing health crises.

 
Ahmed Darwesch and Rula Marahfeh
About MSF

International Activity Report 2021 (PDF, 5.5 MB)

msf.org 13 Jul 2022

2021 in review

Half a century since a handful of volunteers from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) took our first steps in 1971 in providing humanitarian medical assistance, over 63,000 people continued this work in 2021, providing care to people across more than 70 countries.

Few places in 2021 needed the presence of lifesaving medical workers more than Ethiopia. The ongoing conflict in the country’s northern Tigray region has resulted in widespread devastation – hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and are living in terrible conditions, cut off from food, water and medical assistance.

 
Coatzacoalcos, Mexico
Photo Story

A year in pictures 2021

8 Dec 2021
Photo Story

Confronting and addressing our responsibilities

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) continues to work to ensure people across the world, in some of the most remote and excluded regions, have access to healthcare. But we must also continue to push ourselves, to self-reflect and question whether we are keeping in line with our responsibilities to the environment and on discrimination and abuse suffered at the hands of our organisation by staff, patients and communities.  

In 2020, we recognised and acknowledged that, despite years of raising awareness and efforts to address issues of inequities, discrimination and institutional racism, progress had not been fast enough. This led to a public commitment to tackle discrimination and racism within our organisation. 

Feature articles
MSF compound gate in Dagahaley camp
An MSF ambulance seen outside MSF compound gate in Dagahaley. Kenya, May 2021
© Paul Odongo/MSF
01 / 02

The regrettable new normal: Navigating humanitarian action in counter-terrorism settings

Former MSF legal director Françoise Bouchet-Saulnier outlines the how teams providing humanitarian aid, including from MSF, have come under a new form of attack, this time from states' counter-terrorism measures.

Read More

Our activities around the world in 2021

Our teams conducted medical activities in 72 countries in 2021. Click on the map to find out more.

Facts and figures

Facts and figures

Our activities in figures
Malnutrition emergency: mobile clinic in Ranobe - Portrait Vitasoa

12,592,800

outpatient consultations
Ethiopia: People in rural Tigray hit by impact of crisis and humanitarian neglect

1,628,600

vaccinations against measles in response to an outbreak
COVID-19 treatment facility in Herat

1,044,000

Patients admitted

International Financial Report

Every year we publish our audited combined Financial Statements. These combined accounts are a means of transparency and accountability, providing a global overview of MSF’s work.

The International Financial report represents an aggregation of the Financial Statements of the 23 sections, 9 branch offices, 9 satellite organisations and MSF International.

Tackling COVID-19 in Lebanon, through prevention and vaccination
Annual Report

International Financial Report 2021

25 May 2022
Annual Report