As a medical humanitarian organisation, access to the right health products is critical to MSF’s work. The availability and quality of these products considerably affects our ability to deliver medical care to the people we assist and the level of care we can provide.

In May 2020, MSF’s International Board tasked our executive committee with clarifying the strategic direction and oversight of all activities and objectives related to our work on access to medicines, defined as access to health products used for medical care. In October 2020, the committee approved the “Access to Medicines RoadMap Project”.

We subsequently launched a multi-step consultation and analysis process to help redefine our approach to improving access to medicines. The consultation process included a survey and a questionnaire that was sent to respondents inside and outside of MSF.

The objective of the survey was to gather feedback from MSF staff and Association members, the communities and patients we assist, civil society organisations, patient associations, governments and academia on issues related to access to health products used for medical care.

The areas in this survey are based on issues identified in the strategic plans of the six MSF Operational Centres and in the international typology classification of medical data.

The questionnaire aimed to collect information from a range of stakeholders inside and outside MSF about problems with access to health products and their causes. The questionnaire was sent to a list of targeted informants and to individuals who had expressed an interest in completing it after taking the survey. The goal was to have 200 respondents.

The final results of the survey and of the questionnaire are available below.

If questions or comments, please contact the Access to Medicines RoadMap Project Manager: jeremie.bodin(at)msf.org.