On this week’s edition of the Joy Beat, we’re examining what drives those who put themselves on the front lines to help when crisis strikes.
Dr. Javid Abdelmoneim is the international president of Doctors Without Borders [Médecins Sans Frontières], the humanitarian medical organization with projects in more than 70 countries. The group was recently honored with the Elisabeth B. Weintz Humanitarian Award from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, in part for its “unwavering commitment to principled humanitarian action grounded in independence, neutrality, and impartiality.” Dr. Abdelmoneim joined All Things Considered host Arun Rath to talk about the joy that comes from rendering care amid crisis. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Arun Rath: Great to have you because I know you are a very busy individual. You received the award earlier this week. Have you had time to celebrate?
Javid Abdelmoneim: Well, I think the reception itself was a celebration, and it was a celebration of sort of connection and networking of sorts. I mean, we’re humanitarians at Doctors Without Borders. Our business, so to speak, is humans and their wellbeing, and it was an immense pleasure to receive this award on behalf of all of my colleagues globally. But what was so special, especially, is that the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative is this sort of scientific, clinical practitioner, academic institute of conveners — of everything to do with humanitarian work and how to improve that and make it more effective and person-centered and community-centered. And it was just a real celebration in that moment to be connected to so many like-minded individuals, specialists, professionals, but each of us and each of them caring individuals in this sector, so to speak, of delivering humanitarian aid.
Rath: I want to talk about all of that, but more for a moment on this particular moment, because this recognition is coming at a particularly difficult time. We’ve talked on this show about how the global aid network has shrunk, and shrunk doesn’t seem a strong enough word for what’s happened with, say, USAID. One expert from the Council on Foreign Relations called 2025 the worst humanitarian year on record. With that context, can you talk about what it means to receive this recognition in that context?
Abdelmoneim: It’s a good question. Of course, we don’t do what we do for the recognition of it, but of course, it always feels positive to be recognized for that. The point is that the moment of time where we find ourselves right now is one of great danger and ever-increasing needs. Twenty twenty-five was also the year with the highest number of interstate conflicts since World War II and the greatest number of fatalities since the Rwandan genocide. In that context, you’ve had the gutting of the global aid and global health systems, not just by the U.S., but also by multiple governments of Europe as well. And we’ve seen the effects of that where we work. I myself was working in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, which is in its fourth year of civil war. It started in April 2023. And when the cuts were announced in January [2025], I was there working. I was a medical team leader in a hospital. We were doing outbreak and outreach services, but also ER and maternal services and pediatrics. And I had — practically overnight — four or five different organizations coming to me to say “We’ve just been cut, can you support us and fill the gap?”
And though MSF itself is independent and not affected by government cuts, we don’t take government money anywhere in the world. We’re not a nation state, we’re not limitless in our resources and of course we can’t cover all the gaps left behind by those in power. So it was a very desperate situation and we’re seeing it across the world. We see it particularly in refugee camps with food rations being cut. We see it particularly in services for sexual and reproductive health. We see it in services for HIV across the world. And it’s in that context of increasing conflicts, as I said, so an even more dangerous world. It’s lovely to receive the recognition, as I said, but of course we want to center the people that we’re there to assist, the communities that we’re there to aid, and make sure that their plights and their needs are seen by everybody.
Rath: Tell us about how you decided to join Doctors Without Borders originally. You joined first in 2009, is that correct?
Abdelmoneim: That is. In medical school in the year 2000 was the first time I came across MSF. I use the English — the French acronym, sorry. Médecins Sans Frontières means Doctors Without Borders in French, and it originated in France. So we go by MSF, but of course, Doctors Without Borders or DWB. So I first came across MSF in the year 2000, which was the middle year of my medical schooling, and I volunteered with them at that stage in a campaign around access to medicines. And once I came to know the organization in that capacity, I thought, this is where I want to be. And I finished medical school, started some of my specialization in emergency medicine, and then applied in 2009 and did my first deployment to Iraq in Basra, in the second city of Iraq in the south.
Rath: I think about the last 15, 16 years and all of the horrendous global conflict there has been at that time. I’m wondering, was there a point in there — I can’t imagine you’re a person that ever doubted your mission — but was there a point where it actually solidified for you that this is why I’m doing this?
Abdelmoneim: I think one of the most profound experiences I have ever had was in Haiti. It’s a country within the sort of American sphere right here in the Caribbean. And I went there after the earthquake, and then worked through that into the cholera epidemic that broke out there.
Rath: Wow.
Abdelmoneim: Really, that was only the second time I worked for MSF, straight after Iraq, and I’d never quite seen so much avoidable death, I have to say. And it affected me very personally, being a clinician coming from a high-resource setting in the U.K., to see that was devastating. But I really got to learn the power of being present as an international organization that insists on finding a way to stay in proximity with people and communities in need, that expressing our solidarity for every human, no matter who they are and where they are. We get up and we move ourselves and we join our teammates and actually eight to nine out of every team member in MSF is from that local context, and someone like me has an enormous privilege to be flown in and to join my Haitian team members, for example, and to bring about these instances of care where you really, really respect the dignity of that person sitting in front of you. As a clinician, it’s such a beautiful thing and I learned that power early on then because there was so much devastation after that earthquake. And when the cholera came, it was horrific and just trying to scrape together care for those people together with my Haitian colleagues — it’s just such an endeavor, it’s really energizing and makes me feel a strong sense of purpose.
Rath: We talked earlier about how the global aid network has shrunk and how MSF has been rising to fill the gaps where you can. I’m curious how recruitment is right now. Are you seeing young doctors like you were in 2009 lining up to do this difficult work?
Abdelmoneim: We are very privileged and lucky as MSF to have a huge amount of support around the world. And some of that support, obviously, are donors, our private individuals around the world who donate money, and that’s one facet of our independence, right? Those are our supporters that are so important. It starts with them. And of course, then other supporters who are people who want to work for us. And it’s not just doctors, right? It’s surgeons, it’s psychologists, it’s nurses, midwives, pharmacists. But even then, it’s not just that. There are logisticians and engineers and administrators and finance experts and lawyers and communications experts and everything that you might need to run a hospital or a clinic or a humanitarian response. And we don’t lack for human resources, let me put it that way. It’s wonderful to be able to have mixed teams of all sorts of professions, but all sorts of nationalities and coming from all different parts of the world, working somewhere for one common endeavor. And that endeavor is something that is not political. It’s got no agenda other than to deliver healthcare.
If you would like to make a nomination for the Joy Beat, leave us a voicemail at 617-300-B-E-A-T [2328].
