African Union – European Union Summit, what are the results ?

Exclusive interview with Alain Le Roy who prepared and followed this summit.

From left to right: Muhammadu BUHARI (President of Nigeria, Nigeria), Ursula VON DER LEYEN (President of the European Commission, EUROPEAN COMMISSION), Abdel Fattah EL-SISI (President of Egypt, Egypt), Cyril RAMAPHOSA (South Africa), Charles MICHEL (President of the European Council, EUROPEAN COUNCIL), Emmanuel MACRON (President of France, France), Macky SALL (President of Senegal, Senegal), Kaïs SAÏED (Tunisia) at the 2022 AU-EU Summit @European Union

Alain Boinet : You prepared the 6th African Union-European Union Summit that was just held in Brussels on February 17 and 18 under the chairmanship of Mr. Macky Sall and Charles Michel. How is this a “renewed partnership rich in promise” when the previous Summit in Abidjan in 2017 left mixed memories ?

Alain Le Roy : Indeed, at the end of the Abidjan summit in 2017, there was supposed to be an action plan that was not adopted, which led to some frustration. This is why it was essential to hold a new summit with concrete, precise and measurable commitments. Normally, this Africa-Europe summit is held every three years, but because of COVID, it had to wait until 2022 to be held. France insisted that it be held during its presidency of the Council of the European Union.

This time, particular attention was paid to the results of the summit and also to the form. The objective was to achieve a short and readable political declaration and to avoid the long litany of 80 heads of state and government speaking one after the other. Discussions were thus organized around seven round tables for in-depth debate between heads of state and experts on the following themes: financing growth / infrastructure, energy, transport, digital / peace, security and governance / vaccines and health systems / agriculture and sustainable development / education, vocational training, migration / support for the private sector and economic integration.

150 billion to finance investments in Africa by 2027, and a list of concrete and well identified projects in the different areas.

The feedback was very positive from most of the African and European Heads of State present, who declared themselves very satisfied with the concrete results of the summit and the strengthening of the partnership between Africa and Europe. The final press conference, in addition to welcoming the efforts and commitments of this summit, was also an opportunity to recall that Europe is by far the first partner of Africa, whether in terms of investment, trade or official development assistance. And that it intends to remain so.

Alain Boinet : How do the partnership and development policies of the 27 member states of the European Union, such as France, relate to the decisions taken at this Summit ?

Alain Le Roy : Each EU member state has of course its own development aid policy. The only completely communitarized policy of the European Union is the trade policy. On the other hand, all other areas, and in particular development aid policy and foreign policy, are not communitized, they are, as they say in Brussels, intergovernmental. Each country keeps its own policy.

The European Commission proposes the distribution of funds approved in the framework of the European budget and for support to Africa this is mainly done through a new instrument, the NDICI. This distribution is examined by different working groups in which the Member States are represented.

This year it was decided to make Europe’s effort more visible by aggregating as much as possible per project the EU commitments (NDICI funds for example) with the commitments of the Member States and their development agencies, as well as with the commitments of the EIB (European Investment Bank). This is called the Team Europe approach.

Alain Boinet : What concrete measures have been taken to address the health, economic and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa ? 

Launch of the vaccination campaign against COVID-19 in Benin @Présidence de la République du Bénin (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Alain Le Roy : In this pandemic context, two aspects must be taken into account, first the direct health consequences of the pandemic but also the economic consequences. To best respond to the health needs in Africa, providing vaccines to the continent was obviously the priority. Despite a certain delay at the beginning of the pandemic, Europe remains the only continent that has never limited its vaccine exports and the one that has already supplied Africa with more than 150 million vaccines. The goal is to reach 450 million vaccines delivered to Africa by the end of June 2022 in addition to those provided by the COVAX mechanism, which the EU has financed to the tune of 3 billion dollars. Much has been said about Chinese vaccines, but so far China has only provided Africa with 35 million vaccines, far less than Europe.

The summit also focused on helping to increase the rate of vaccination in Africa. Indeed, despite these donations of vaccines, the average vaccination rate in Africa remains below 13% compared to 70% in Europe. This low figure can be explained by insufficient vaccination campaigns, personal anti-vaccination reluctance, blockages due to lack of equipment (not enough syringes for example) or lack of primary care services. Team Europe has therefore planned a package of measures to strengthen African health systems, including 425 million euros to accelerate the pace of vaccination.

Finally, during the summit, commitments were made to help Africa rapidly produce its own vaccines, particularly in South Africa, Rwanda and Senegal. A specific sequence focused on the production of messenger RNA vaccines. Six countries will be supported in the production of these vaccines: Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia.

As for the economic consequences of the health crisis, this aspect was already addressed during the Summit on the financing of African economies on May 18, 2021 in Paris, with in particular the allocation by the IMF of 650 billion dollars of SDR* for the whole world, including 33 billion dollars directly for Africa. In addition, the G20 countries have set a target of reallocating up to $100 billion of their own SDRs, mainly to Africa. The summit noted that progress toward this goal is well underway, with over $55 billion in firm commitments, including $13 billion from the leading European countries.

*Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), also in the singular, are an international monetary instrument created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement the existing official reserves of member countries.

Alain Boinet : It seems that there are technical problems that hinder this reallocation

Alain Le Roy : There are no serious technical problems with reallocation through IMF trusts.

The first way that works is for developed countries to lend their SDRs through the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT), which is an existing IMF trust. Countries lend to the IMF, which then lends directly to African states. This first trust is expected to approach $30 billion.

The second way is to use the Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST), a trust that is being created and whose idea was born at the May 18 summit. It will be operational in September/October. The RST could reach 50 or 60 billion dollars, mainly for Africa, but not exclusively. Indeed, this trust is intended for vulnerable LDCs and MICs (middle-income countries), the majority of which are African countries.

The difficulty is to put in place a third way that would allow the reallocation of these SDRs directly to the benefit of African development banks, which would create a real leverage effect. For the moment, the European Central Bank considers it impossible to lend the SDRs of the euro zone countries outside the IMF trusts. It is therefore a subject on which our experts at the Treasury Department are working to find a solution.

Alain Boinet : This summit mentions a vast development plan with an investment package of 150 billion dollars. What is it about and what are the priorities of this plan ?  

Alain Le Roy : Indeed, this summit was the occasion to launch an EU investment plan in Africa of at least 150 billion euros over 5 years. As part of the EU’s Global Gateway project, this plan will have a leverage effect on private investment, which should multiply its real impact by about 3.

This plan covers many areas already identified by the African Union’s Agenda 2063, including

. health, with particular support for health systems and vaccine production in Africa,

. education, with support for teacher training and the strengthening or creation of vocational training centers adapted to local labor markets

. infrastructure, by strengthening procedures across the board to increase transparency and sustainability of projects

. energy, with numerous electricity interconnection projects and “fair” energy partnerships to support countries in their energy transition, taking into account their immense needs to increase access to electricity,

Ain Beni Mathar integrated combined cycle thermo-solar power plant in Morocco. Photo: Dana Smillie / World Bank (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) 

. transport, with a list of road, rail and port infrastructure projects, often of regional interest and with a rapid start-up,

. digital access, including the start of the feasibility study for the Europe-Africa submarine cable, the development of training hubs and the strengthening of satellite access

. support for the private sector, particularly the African start-up sector and young entrepreneurs, through specific funds. As well as support for the establishment of the African Free Trade Area to contribute to the economic integration of the continent.

In each area, specific and concrete projects have been selected, in agreement between the EU and the AU.

Alain Boinet : The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 2015-2030) are not mentioned anywhere in the final declaration of this Summit.

Alain Le Roy : The SDGs may not have been explicitly cited in the final declaration, but it is clear that the entire project is in line with the SDGs. The 150 billion package explicitly serves the common ambition for the 2030 agenda, which is precisely a reference to the UN’s SDG agenda. This is one of the points on which Europe is working very seriously to ensure that investments are sustainable and that their impact on the environment is measured each time.

Alain Boinet : Among the topics officially addressed during the Summit on Peace, Security and Governance, there is practically nothing in the final declaration, notably on the Sahel and the Barkhane and Takuba operations. The same is true for humanitarian aid, which is a priority in many African countries. Is this an oversight ?

Visit of Mr. El-Ghassim Wane, Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations, Head of MINUSMA to the Togolese contingent of MINUSMA @MINUSMA/Harandane Dicko (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Alain Le Roy : A round table specifically devoted to peace and security issues was organized during the Summit, which gave rise to very dense and rich discussions.

The principles of our strengthened cooperation on peace and security were specified in point 5 of the final declaration of the summit. This concerns, among other things, support for the training of African security forces and support for African operations (in Somalia, for the G5 Sahel, etc.). We also hope that the EU will be able, as soon as the new European Peace Facility is operational, to support African operations contributing to the stability of the continent or to the fight against terrorism, such as the current operation in Rwanda to fight terrorism in Mozambique, at the request of that country.

The declaration also recalls the essential nature of the commitment of all to respect international humanitarian law.

The issue of the Sahel and the future of Barkhane was the subject of a specific Euro-African meeting in Paris the day before the summit.

Alain Boinet : Will there be an effective monitoring mechanism? There has even been talk of civil society having a say in the implementation of the programs. Some are skeptical, are they right to be concerned ?

Alain Le Roy : The Summit was very clear, there will be a precise follow-up of the commitments made. The European Commission will be fully transparent on the commitments made, through a website that will give details of these commitments and the status of implementation of the projects decided. There will also be a monitoring committee that will report to the annual EU-AU ministerial meeting. This website will be accessible to all and in particular to all associations and foundations interested in Africa and will serve as a spur to ensure the effective implementation of the commitments made during the summit.

Alain Boinet : How would you like to conclude on this African Union-European Union summit, of which we have not been able to address all aspects, as they are so numerous.

Alain Le Roy : We had some concerns because the Abidjan summit had generated frustrations and since 2017, there had been no other summit. In addition, the COVID aspect and the situation in Ukraine added a factor of uncertainty to the holding of the summit.

But in the end, the summit was held on the scheduled dates, in person, and with an exceptional participation! 100% of the European Heads of State or Government were present. As well as nearly 90% of the invited African heads of state. In total, nearly 80 Heads of State, and many high-level experts, were thus present at the summit. On the African side, as well as on the European side, all declared themselves satisfied with the results of the summit, even if the agreement on intellectual property concerning the production of vaccines has not yet been reached. Unfortunately, the crisis in Ukraine reduced the visibility of the summit results in the media.

A lot was done in terms of commitments on specific and concrete projects, taking into account the African priorities, the 2030 Agenda of the SDGs and the 2063 Agenda of the African Union.

I think we have succeeded, despite divergent interests, in getting all European countries interested in Africa. The rate of participation and the significant amounts mobilized are proof of this. This mobilization of the whole of Europe in favor of Africa, and not only countries like France, Spain, Italy or Portugal, is a real success that brings many hopes.

The situation in Africa will certainly not change radically overnight, but this general mobilization was essential to progress in the economic recovery of Africa and in strengthening the Africa-Europe link. We are now counting on civil society for its mobilization and its role as a spur in the follow-up of the many commitments made.

For further information, please find below the text of the final declaration and more specific official notes. 

To go further :

Interview with Alain Le Roy on the summit on financing African economies : Interview with Alain Le Roy on the summit on financing African economies – Défis Humanitaires (defishumanitaires.com)

Final official statement : final-declaration-fr.pdf (europa.eu)

Details on the SUEUA : https://www.consilium.europa.eu/fr/meetings/international-summit/2022/02/17-18/

Announcement of the first beneficiaries of the technology transfer center for RNA-Messenger vaccines : https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2022/02/18/annonce-des-premiers-beneficiaires-du-centre-de-transfert-de-technologie-pour-les-vaccins-a-arn-messager

Joint statement on combating the terrorist threat : https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2022/02/17/declaration-conjointe-sur-la-lutte-contre-la-menace-terroriste

Partnerships for a just energy transition in Africa : https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2022/02/18/partenariats-pour-une-transition-energetique-juste-en-afrique

EU – AU Summit: widening the scope of plant proteins in Africa : https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2022/02/18/sommet-ue-ua-elargir-le-champ-des-proteines-vegetales-en-afrique

Reminder : 

Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), also in the singular, are an international monetary instrument created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement the existing official reserves of member countries.


Who is Alain Le Roy ?

Alain Le Roy is Ambassador of France and Honorary Senior Advisor to the Court of Auditors. He has been Ambassador of France to Madagascar and Italy, as well as Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, in charge of peacekeeping operations, and Secretary General of the European External Action Service.

 

 

 

 

Syria: medicine on the front line

Interview Part 2

Malnutrition takes its toll on undernourished children ©ECHO

Interview with Dr. Ziad Alissa, co-founder and President of UOSSM France and Prof. Raphaël Pitti, Head of Training of UOSSM France by Pierre Brunet.


Pierre Brunet : Let’s come back to the Covid situation, which was discussed in the first part of this interview by Professor Pitti. What has UOSSM France been doing? I know that you started to do special Covid trainings from last June. You have set up 13 isolation centers. You provide assistance to health structures. Can you develop this emergency aid linked to Covid in Syria ?

Ziad Alissa : For Covid in Syria, there were no specialized structures. Already there is a lack of everything on the medical level. With Covid, things became a little more complicated. We tried anyway, knowing that the local authorities were not able to set up the confinement or the social distancing. So we set up isolation centers, for fragile people, people at risk. They are sent to these centers so that they can be better cared for, because we were not able to confine them properly. People can’t isolate themselves in their homes. You can’t ask someone who has Covid or who is in contact with someone to stay at home when you know that their whole family is there. How can you talk about isolation in a tent, where there are 15-20 people under the same roof, or when there are 4-5 families in each house? There are no individual rooms for people. So we have replaced containment with isolation centers, and in those centers there are areas for confirmed Covid cases, and areas for contact cases. And that’s where we treat people. It’s a reverse containment, with everything you need available: masks, gloves, equipment, oxygen, medication… With the added difficulty that it is already difficult to get the vaccines in, and that despite the arrival of vaccination, there is still a refusal of vaccine, and a logistical difficulty to vaccinate everyone. Despite all the campaigns, we have not managed to vaccinate many people. Only 3% of the people are vaccinated in the northwest of Syria, and Covid is in danger of exploding. There are many complications, many deaths. We are trying to inform people, using all the means at our disposal, about the risk of Covid, about the interest of isolation, about the interest of being vaccinated. Then we set up this first Covid training in Raqqa with Professor Raphael Pitti. It was a first in Raqqa, to train health care workers in the management of severe cases of Covid-19.

Raphaël Pitti : It is important to know that the country is completely closed, they have internet in some areas and can look for information that can be found on the internet regarding Covid.  For us too, during the first wave in the hospitals, we were confronted with a pathology that nobody knew and we did not know how to treat it either. We had to be constantly on the lookout for scientific information, through webinars, every day, trying to compare ourselves with others, to follow the recommendations issued by learned societies, etc. So in the second wave, we were much more experienced in managing this disease. We knew it better, we knew the risks it could cause and we were able to respond. Syrian health care workers, on the other hand, have not had any continuing medical education for ten years… Ten years that they have not participated in congresses, that they have not developed their training. It seemed important to us to try to review the situation with them and we organized these training sessions in the Idleb area in particular. We did it by Zoom with them, explaining the evolutionary genius of this disease, the way patients had to be treated. In the Raqqa area, we went there to meet them, to set up this training with the idea that two anti-Covid centers could open, relying on these doctors. Out of the twenty doctors we trained, we selected some in each center to take care of Covid patients. We also trained midwives: with a fellow obstetrician, Dr. Zouhair Lahna, we went to our training center in Dêrik and brought together midwives to bring them up to speed, to give them the new recommendations on complications in the first, second and third trimesters of pregnancy and resuscitation of newborns at birth. It was really important and they felt the need to say “well no, this is not how we treat anymore, this is how we proceed”. When we met with the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, we told him “the war situation is a little calmer, because the regime has reoccupied 60% of the territory, except for the Idleb area and the North-East area which are still subject to violence and bombing, and it is perhaps time to rehabilitate a health service in Syria, to be able to take care of chronic pathologies, to redo preventive medicine, to launch large-scale vaccination campaigns.

Bombing, attack, mine? This child has lost both legs. ©UOSSM

We need to rehabilitate the health structures to respond beyond the emergency, because we only respond to the emergency of the day”. And today the grants are starting to decrease, and we are told “Look, you need less money, there are many more difficult situations in Yemen and so on, the economic crisis we are facing is decreasing the international grants” even though we are trying to explain that we need much more money today than in 2012, because the situation has not stopped deteriorating. To prove this, we decided to launch a public health survey in the refugee camps that have existed for ten years, in which there are children aged 4-6, children who were born in these camps, who have no health follow-up. If you go into a refugee camp in Syria, no 4-6 year old child wears glasses! And we already had dental problems linked to malnutrition, a lot of cavities in these children, because of their diet, mainly made of sugars, with very few green vegetables able to bring the trace elements they need. It will be a complete survey to take stock of their health needs and to be able, from there, according to the results, to alert the international community, to alert the WHO, to alert UNICEF about the future of these children who have been living in these camps since their birth and in a country at war for ten years. How will we rebuild tomorrow a country like Syria, with children who are already somatically and psychologically disabled? Let’s remember that the medical examinations done in schools for children aged 4-6, every year in France (compulsory examination by the directorates of maternal and child protection), note that 40% of French children have problems detected at the time of these visits. When I say 40%, I mean all kinds of problems: caries, eye problems, hearing problems, language delay, behavioral problems, somatic problems: 40% in France! What about in Syria?

Pierre Brunet : Still on the Covid training, I feel that the main idea of these trainings is to “do the best with what we have”. That is to say that you start from the means available on the spot to “invent” protocols which are certainly based on the WHO guidelines, but which are adapted and feasible. You start from reality to produce a practicable theory instead of, as is perhaps done in the West, starting from theory to practice ?

UOSSM medical team visits IDP camp ©UOSSM

Raphaël Pitti : In a situation like Syria, with the shortage of drugs, the absence of resuscitation services, the lack of technical means, you would like us to train according to international recommendations, for countries with a high level of technology, developed? Would you like us to create a feeling of frustration, by telling them “this is what needs to be done, unfortunately for you, you can’t do it”? We are obliged to put ourselves at their level and say “what can we do, at best, in your situation, to manage these patients? Obviously, this implies that we are going to let some of them die, since there are not enough resuscitation services. If there is a sorting that is done, it is in this country. Our Syrian colleagues tell us “We used industrial oxygen”, with all that this presupposes, industrial oxygen is not pure oxygen, it can contain a certain number of elements that can alter the pulmonary alveoli and destroy them. But they did it! Did they sort it? Of course they sorted. There are people they left to die because of lack of resources, obviously. So we had to start from their daily life to find out how we could save people from this daily life.

Pierre Brunet : On training. I asked myself this question: do we train specialists, doctors, midwives, etc. at the same time, because it is urgent and because we must respond quickly to the needs, or do we say to ourselves that we will first train trainers ?

Dr. Ziad Alissa and Professor Raphael Pitti show the use of a chemical weapons protective suit. The photo was taken in 2017 at Bab Al Hawa Hospital in Syria following the chemical attacks on Khan Sheikhoun ©UOSSM

Raphaël Pitti : The important thing is to train trainers so that they can continue on their own. We wanted the training centers that we set up to be autonomous. The goal was: we trained the trainers and then the trainers, together with the directors, set up the training courses. We provided the logistical and financial support necessary for the functioning of these structures. In ten years, how could we have trained 31,000 people, travelling each time, to train how many? The Syrians, and the Syrian medical staff, during these ten years, have written a page in the history of medicine. Everything was done by the Syrians, inside Syria. We gave them the necessary help, but they were the only ones who maintained a health system despite the war situation during these ten years. We, the NGOs, have only provided them with the means. They are the real heroes of the Syrian conflict. We owe them recognition for their sacrifice. UOSSM France has counted 923 doctors who died during these ten years.

Pierre Brunet : You also emphasize what you call “community health”, i.e. proximity medical structures, primary health centers (17 created in Northern Syria), and mobile clinics. What was the need that led to the emphasis on these community health facilities ?

UOSSM Pharmacy ©UOSSM

Ziad Alissa : We started with this idea because it was difficult for patients to go to hospitals. The hospital was becoming a dangerous zone, people were afraid to go there because the hospitals were targeted by the bombings. So with this community health system, we go where there are people, especially where there are displaced people who settle, and we set up a health center as close as possible to them. The mobile clinics also allow us to go even further, inside the IDP camps, in the most difficult to access areas. Health centers are expensive and it is difficult for us to set them up as we would like. Hence the idea of a mobile clinic, because with the same human resources, they will go to areas where there is no open center. They travel with small vans in which there is a doctor, a midwife, a nurse, with what to do a medical examination, what to treat simple diseases. If the mobile clinic detects people who have serious illnesses, who are poorly followed up, who need to go to the center, they give them an appointment at the nearest center or at the hospital. With this system, we were able to get as close as possible to the people who needed us, while reducing the risks of accessing large hospitals. People were asking themselves, “What if I go to the hospital, will I make it home alive? Not to mention the difficulties and costs of transportation. We met with Raphaël people who are dialyzed 2-3 times a week, who, instead of going 3 times to the dialysis center, will go there twice or even once a week, because they cannot afford to pay the round trip or to buy the filters.

Pierre Brunet : You tell UOSSM France that testifying is also part of our action.

Raphaël Pitti : You cannot be a doctor, be on the spot, and just take care of victims who are innocent victims, caught between belligerents, borders now closed, with a wall that separates Syria from Turkey of more than 900 kilometers. These people are in a veritable concentration camp, where death and hunger loom large. How do you expect us to go there, to see this, and to go out and resume our quiet lives? It is impossible. The action of witnessing goes hand in hand with that of care, of humanitarian aid. It is concordant, it cannot be otherwise, otherwise we become accomplices of this situation. The action of witnessing imposes itself on the humanitarian and makes him say, and in particular to the Western governments, “look at what is happening, you try to turn your head not to see what is happening, and well, we are there and we can tell you, things are not as you think they are or as you want them to be, we bring you information which is that of the field, of the voiceless”. When we asked several times to see President Hollande, as we went to see President Macron, as we went to the UN, to New York, to Geneva, etc., we went with one goal: to help them find solutions. For the humanitarian action you can count on us, but for the political action, it is up to you. Politicians often tend to want to do humanitarian work when they are asked to find political solutions to allow peace. Politicians have the impression that by giving us money, by helping us in our humanitarian action, it exonerates them from not finding a solution. Well, no, everyone has their own job. Humanitarians should do the humanitarian work and politicians should find the political solutions.

Ziad Alissa : We doctors who go there, as well as our teams who treat every day, can testify to violations of humanitarian law and bring back evidence of our testimony. When people talk about victims in hospitals following a bombing, and some say “No, no, we bombed soldiers, terrorists in such and such an area, in such and such a city, in such and such a neighborhood”, we see that in hospitals it is children, women, civilians who come, of all ages. We have hospital records, we have photos, we have videos, we have the doctors who treated these victims, and we can demonstrate that the victims are civilians. When we saw the use of chemical weapons, we testified. We have seen the victims of chemical weapons, we have taken samples, we have reported evidence. This is where our role as witnesses is essential.

Pierre Brunet : One last question: why this specific commitment of UOSSM France to the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, so far from Syria ?

Raphaël Pitti : How many Rohingyas have fled Burma? More than a million people, in the poorest country in the world, 80 million inhabitants, Bangladesh, and who received this million Rohingyas fleeing Burma, in the Cox’s Bazar camp of a million people, in a situation of immense precariousness. We were really confronted with pathologies that I never imagined seeing during my 30 years of medicine. Facial cancers, patients who had fractures that had not been reduced and who were living in impossible conditions. We saw bladder stones, young women with infected vesico-vaginal fistulas from traumatic deliveries. A population that for years had been completely abandoned to itself without any possible care. So we rented a clinic and operated for two weeks. We were two teams and we operated non-stop, and we should have stayed much longer. We thought we were providing emergency help and we were confronted with a situation of chronic pathologies that had not been treated for a very long time, and for which we would have had to stay.

 

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Dr. Ziad Alissa, co-fondateur et Président de l’UOSSM France

As an anaesthetist and resuscitator, Dr. Ziad Alissa has been involved since the beginning of the conflict in Syria in the implementation of medical and humanitarian aid to the health care workers in Syria by co-founding the French and international medical NGO UOSSM, the Union of Organizations for Medical Relief and Care. He has carried out some forty humanitarian missions in Syria and in the neighboring countries of Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Trained in war medicine by Prof. Raphaël Pitti, he coordinates the implementation of training programs for health care workers in Syria, which have enabled 31,000 health care workers to be trained since 2012.

 

Professor Raphaël Pitti, Head of training at UOSSM France

aphaël Pitti is an associate professor of emergency medicine, anaesthesiologist-resuscitator, and army general physician. A specialist in war medicine, he joined UOSSM France in 2012 as head of training and has enabled the training of tens of thousands of caregivers. On March 1, 2021, he carried out thirty-one humanitarian missions with Syrian caregivers in the north of the country. In June 2021, he and Dr. Ziad Alissa conducted the first training in Raqqa to fight against COVID-19.

 

Pierre Brunet, writer and humanitarian 

Born in 1961 in Paris to a French father and a Spanish mother, Pierre Brunet found his first vocation as a freelance journalist. In 1994, he crossed paths with humanitarian aid and volunteered in Rwanda, which had been devastated by genocide. In early 1995, he left on a humanitarian mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, then torn by civil war. There he took on the responsibilities of program coordinator in Sarajevo, then head of mission.

Upon his return to France at the end of 1996, he joined the headquarters of the French NGO SOLIDARITES INTERNATIONAL, for which he had gone on mission. He will be in charge of communication and fundraising, while returning to the field, as in Afghanistan in 2003, and starting to write… In 2011, while remaining involved in humanitarian work, he commits himself totally to writing, and devotes an essential part of his time to his vocation as a writer.

Pierre Brunet is Vice-President of the association SOLIDARITES INTERNATIONAL. He has been in the field in the North-East of Syria, in the “jungle” of Calais in November 2015, and in Greece and Macedonia with migrants in April 2016.

Pierre Brunet’s novels are published by Calmann-Lévy:

  • January 2006: publication of his first novel “Barnum” by Calmann-Lévy, a story born from his humanitarian experience.
  • September 2008 : publication of his second novel ” JAB “, the story of a little Spanish orphan girl who grew up in Morocco and who will become a professional boxer as an adult.
  • March 2014: release of his third novel “Fenicia”, inspired by the life of his mother, a little Spanish orphan during the civil war, refugee in France, later an anarchist activist, seductress, who died in a psychiatric institute at 31 years old.
  • End of August 2017: release of his fourth novel “The Triangle of Uncertainty”, in which the author “returns” again, as in “Barnum” to Rwanda in 1994, to evoke the trauma of a French officer during Operation Turquoise.

In parallel to his work as a writer, Pierre Brunet works as a co-writer of synopses for television series or feature films, in partnership with various production companies. He also collaborates with various magazines by publishing columns or articles, notably on international news.

 


To go further: