Specialised training of field volunteers is an essential part of our work. New volunteers are trained in skills that they will need in the field by a team of emergency experts. MSF offers training programmes to an estimated 1,000 people every year.
Community health worker Alice, DR Congo, 2009. © Karijn Kakebeeke
To assist in this, we have developed handbooks for use in the field covering everything from essential drugs to water and sanitation.
These guidelines, which can be downloaded here, have been translated into several languages and are also used by many other relief organisations.
Project management
Field operations are managed by a country manager and a coordination team.
This often including a medical coordinator, a logistical coordinator, and a financial coordinator, typically in the capital city of each country where MSF works.
These people oversee the project and act as liaison between MSF, local authorities, partners, and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
They report regularly to the Operations Departments at their headquarters. In countries where there are several projects, each project team is led by a field coordinator.
Each of MSF's field missions is initiated and coordinated by one of the organisation's five operational centres in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Geneva and Barcelona.
The project team
MSF mobile clinic, Ethiopia, 2010
© Francois Servranckx/MSF
An average field project team has between four and 12 international volunteers working in collaboration with up to 200 local staff.
International staff generally supervise the work of local staff and provide training on medical techniques.
Local staff help international volunteers understand the needs of the patients and the overall social and cultural context.
Evaluation
All projects are continually evaluated so that they may be adapted to best suit the needs of the affected population.
This information flows constantly between the projects and the relevant MSF office (known as the ‘operational centre’), giving MSF the flexibility to develop the project and optimise the available resources to best help the people most in need.