Médecins Sans Frontières
Nobel Laureate for Peace 1999

Jean-Marie Kindermans was born in Melun, France, in 1950. He is a specialist in public health as well as tropical medicine, and a qualified engineer.

Since 1995 he has been Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). He has spent seventeen years working for or being linked to the organization in Thailand, Chad, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Vietnam and Central America.

From 1984 to 1996, he was director of AEDES, Agence Européenne pour le Développement et la Santé, an international public health organization mostly active in developing countries.

From 1988 to 1994 Kindermans was a member of the board of directors of MSF in Belgium while working as a public health expert for several governments and international organizations. From 1984 to 1992 he also taught a course in health economics and resource management at the Institut de médecine et d'épidémiologie tropicales at the University of Paris.

Currently, Kindermans is responsible for international coordination of all MSF sections and of all external matters linked with the international movement. He is a member of the MSF International Council and Executive Committee, which are the organization’s coordinating bodies.

MSF is the world's largest independent medical and humanitarian organization, committed to two objectives: providing medical aid wherever it is needed, regardless of race, religion, politics or gender, and raising awareness of the plight of the people it helps. MSF was founded in 1971 by a group of French doctors as the first non-military, non-governmental organization specialized in emergency medical assistance.

Since 1972 MSF has been working in Africa, Asia, Europe, Central and South America, providing assistance, food and healthcare to refugees and to victims of wars and civil wars, epidemics and natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes and earthquakes. It carries out its mission in 80 countries, with more than 2,500 volunteers and a yearly budget of around $250 million. It is comprised of 19 sections located in Europe, America, Asia and Australia, coordinated by an International Office established in Brussels in 1990.

MSF has received a number of prizes for its activity, among which: the Ford Prize (1989), the Philadelphia Liberty Medal (1991), the Human Rights Award of the Council of Europe, the Nansen Medal of the UN High Commission for Refugees (1993) and the Indira Gandhi Prize (1997). After four "nominations" - in 1990, 1991, 1994 and 1995 - in 1999 MSF was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace "in recognition of the organization’s pioneering humanitarian work". "Since its foundation", states the press release issued by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, "MSF has adhered to the fundamental principle that all disaster victims, whether the disaster is natural or human in origin, have a right to professional assistance, given as quickly and efficiently as possible". Moreover, by intervening so rapidly, the organization "calls public attention to humanitarian catastrophes, and by pointing to the causes of such catastrophes helps to form bodies of public opinion opposed to violations and abuses of power".