Press centre

Our Headquarters is located in Switzerland – where we were originally founded in 1989 – with two Shared Service Centres in Kenya and Jordan and six Affiliate Offices in France, Germany, South Korea, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and the United States. Medair is currently responding to humanitarian needs in 13 countries worldwide.

Medair focusses on people’s most urgent needs in times of crisis, which most often includes water and sanitation, nutrition, health, and shelter. We also use cash assistance where appropriate to help people provide for themselves, allowing them to prioritise their biggest needs while investing in the local economy. We also recognise that the people we serve are often traumatised and need care, so we offer mental health and psychosocial support.

Our mandate is to respond to urgent humanitarian needs resulting from disaster, disease, and conflict. However, for communities to become more resilient against future threats, they need to become better prepared. That’s why we provide training and preparation to reduce risks and strengthen communities in places prone to disasters, like Madagascar.

We are transparent about our finances and committed to using them wisely – 90.5% goes directly to delivering humanitarian assistance and 9.5% to supporting management and fundraising efforts. We are certified to the Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS), which demonstrates our programme excellence. And we are deeply committed to upholding and being accountable to our codes of ethics and protection policies.

Our mandate is to provide humanitarian assistance to people impacted by emergencies and crises regardless of race, creed or nationality so they can live in dignity, free from human suffering, and with hope for a better future. That means we uphold the core humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence and do not discriminate based on age, ability, gender, nationality, ethnicity, or religion.