This article aims to advance understanding and discussion of perceptions studies as a method for strengthening humanitarian performance. Perceptions studies are qualitative studies produced for and often by humanitarian organisations, based on analysis of local perceptions of humanitarian efforts. While these studies are normatively asserted as valuable within the humanitarian sector, there has been no synthesis to date of their potential and limitations.

The Charter of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the guiding document for all of the organization's members, states in the final paragraph that volunteers "understand the risks and dangers of the missions they carry out". Through a review of the different periods in the history of MSF, this article analyzes the changing interpretations that the organization's successive leaders have given to this reference to the acceptance of risk by individuals.

Read the letter by Caroline Abu Sa'Da and Christine Jamet, a response to the briefing by Welz “Crisis in the Central African Republic and the international response” published in African Affairs (Vol. 113, No. 453, pp. 601-610).

From France, Rony Brauman, former president of MSF France, gives us his reading of the philosophical, political and symbolic stakes of Palestine and of this debate – one that particularly captivates the French (far more than their Dutch and Italian neighbors, for example). Rony Brauman doesn’t speak on behalf of Palestinians, but according to him, France and Europe will be useful in this region by recognizing the rights of Palestinians, and not by clinging on to a supposed “peace process”.

What are the ethical issues involved in providing humanitarian aid? What is the real impact of humanitarian groups? MSF sought to answer these questions in the Perception Project, a study that spanned four years and more than ten countries. Close to 7,000 people were interviewed in order to understand the ways that patients, populations, authorities, and communities perceive MSF’s principles and medical practices.

Over the past 40 years, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has developed a reputation as an emergency medical humanitarian organization willing to go almost anywhere to deliver care to people in need.

Yet when questioned about MSF, people in countries where it works had different perceptions. One thought MSF was from Saudi Arabia and financed by Muslim charities. Another thought it was a China-based corporation. And yet another believed MSF requires everyone who enters their medical facilities to be armed (quite the opposite, in fact).