A History of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières

Join us for a lunch discussion featuring Laurence Binet, Director of Studies, Fondation MSF and internal historian for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). For over twenty years, Laurence Binet has been sifting through the MSF archives. Her in-depth research has been compiled into the Speaking Out Case Studies series, which provides primary source evidence of decisions taken by the group during critical moments such as the Ethiopian famine, Rwanda and Zaire during and after the genocide, Somalia in the early 1990s, Chechnya in the early days of Putin, and others.In a discussion moderated by Robin Kirk, faculty co-chair of the Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute, Binet will address the importance of the case studies for understanding the historical trajectory of MSF as an organization over time. How does a fast-moving and emergency-oriented NGO like MSF make decisions and record its changing policies, interests and growth? How did MSF's understanding of its own mission change over time? How did its experience in a particular crisis change the way it approached the next crisis? We'll explore these questions and more.A light lunch will be served.