Current Challenges to Humanitarian Action – Marc DuBois; YIA’s February Virtual Lecture
Date: 12 February 2014
Time: 6:30pm for refreshments; talk starts at 7pm GMT / 2pm EST
Venue: Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
3rd Floor
67 -74 Saffron Hill
London EC1N 8QX
We will also broadcast this live via Ustream and it will be made available for later viewing via our Ustream channel as well.
About the speaker:
Marc DuBois, Executive Director, Médecins Sans Frontières-UK
After graduating from Yale, Marc DuBois (SM ’81, BA in Philosophy) worked for the Peace Corps, organising chicken-raising projects in rural Burkina Faso (as you do). Upon returning from Burkina, he obtained an MA in development studies from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague and then a law degree from Columbia University in New York, where he concentrated on international human rights.
Following a judicial clerkship, Marc was awarded a prestigious Skadden Arps Public Interest Law Fellowship, enabling him to fight housing discrimination in New Orleans through litigation and advocacy. Joining MSF in 1999, he first worked in the field, and then in Amsterdam HQ, specialising in advocacy issues. Marc took over as Executive Director of MSF-UK six years ago, a post he will be leaving at the end of February.
About the organisation:
Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is an independent international medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency support in more than 60 countries. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, the MSF mission aims to provide a full range of health care to those caught up in crisis who often have no access to medical resources. From primary care in large refugee camps to the complex treatment of specific diseases, MSF help where the need is greatest, delivering urgent medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters or exclusion from healthcare. MSF also work to raise awareness and create debate about these crises through their policy of ‘témoignage’.
About the talk:
The Yale International Alliance is very pleased and honoured to welcome Marc DuBois, Executive Director of Médecins Sans Frontières, who will be speaking to us about the concrete exigencies surrounding MSF’s current work in conflict zones around the world, as well as the more cerebral but no less challenging questions of aid: how and when it works and its impact on global politics.
Working in crisis, often in areas of conflict, was never easy. It is getting harder. From the risks of kidnapping or being directly targeted as enemies, to increasing administrative blockage by a reassertion of state sovereignty, to the lack of surge capacity and sustained funding for humanitarian operations, to the complexity of new strains of an old scourge like TB, the delivery of aid to those in crisis is becoming ever more difficult. ‘Current Challenges to Humanitarian Action’ highlights some of these challenges, drawing on both Marc’s recent visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo and MSF’s experience in hotspots like Syria, South Sudan and Myanmar.
We strongly recommend you click on the attached link { http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/marc-dubois/goodbye-to-an-ominous-year_b_4524913.html?utm_hp_ref=uk } for pertinent and eye-opening insights, as well as joining us on February 12th for this stimulating and thought-provoking talk from the front lines.
