One area where technological innovations can help reduce MSF's CO2 emissions and simultaneously improve the quality of our services is energy. This edition of the MSF Innovation Newsletter examines the role of energy transition in MSF’s broader planetary health developments.

The Sweden Innovation Unit, MSF Operational Center Paris, and energy referents from across the movement teamed up with Arup in autumn 2020 to develop the Solar Air Conditioning Sizing Tool. The tool provides a high-level feasibility assessment for installing any type of air conditioning (AC) system and aims to promote the uptake of solar ACs at field level and reduce our CO2 emission.

This article provides a brief overview of what the broad field of Energy Transition encompasses, looks at how innovation boosts the shift to renewables and explores how sustainable energy solutions fit into the broader planetary health developments in MSF.

In 2021, the MSF Sweden Innovation Unit (SIU) ran the MSF Patient Referral Project in collaboration with colleagues from the MSF Operational Center Barcelona and Athens (OCBA). The project aimed at identifying frequent issues in MSF’s referral systems and designing solutions to these challenges.  

Over the course of two years (2019-2021), the Patient Multimedia Engagement (PME) project led by Anne Jansen, funded by MSF’s Transformational Investment Capacity (TIC) and supported by the MSF Sweden Innovation Unit (SIU), has explored how MSF operations can interact with communities through digital and social media.

This edition spotlights operationalisation’s central role in the health innovation space and provides a glimpse into how MSF is working to embed a culture of innovation and demystify the process of implementing and scaling innovative solutions.