"As UN agencies and international NGOs operating in Gaza, we are alarmed by the limited progress in rebuilding the lives of those affected and tackling the root causes of the conflict."

After the devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan medico's Philippine partners provided sustainable emergency aid thanks to their local structures. The health activists concentrated on people and regions which were being ignored by state politics.

At the Turkish-Syrian border, Kurdish cantons have begun to administer themselves. They have also become a refuge for other refugees from persecution in a hopeful but risky experiment on the fringe of the war.

Rojava, which stands for an utterly important peace effort and provides shelter for more than 1.2 million internally displaced persons from Syria's civil war regions, is at risk.

Since the start of 2012, Mali has been overwhelmed by events. The country was shaken by a Tuareg uprising, followed in March by a military coup in the capital Bamako, the North suffered an escalation of terror by religious radical militias, leading to the exodus of hundreds of thousands. This difficult conflict situation also led to a change in the work of medico's partners in Mali.

The liberationary uprising in Syria in 2012 has turned into a bloody war between the government and heterogeneous opposition forces, with the outcome uncertain. This development has been a matter of intensive concern for medico throughout the year. What does solidarity mean, given the contradictory and deadlocked situation in Syria?

In several important project regions, medico maintains its own offices to coordinate projects and service partnerships. Three office directors describe what they considered the most impressive local events in 2012.

Death from hunger is preceded by long, agonising weeks of starvation. Mind and body at first adapt to the continuing shortage of food, lowering the metabolism to a minimum. Muscles shrink, skin cracks, hair goes limp, the remaining strength is just...

The Sahrawi people have, in fact, done everything correctly in their struggle to achieve an independent Western Sahara. They embraced their war of independence in 1969, when the anti-colonial movements reached their historic climax. The moment had...

We have to understand the roots of tragedies to avoid repetition. The crisis in East Africa is not at all „unbelievable“, as some commentators continue to suggest, the approaching disaster has been foreseeable for years and decades. People are dying not only because of an unfortunate drought but also of systemic, wide-ranging problems such as climate change, the consequences of neo-liberal ideologies, military interventions and unstable grain markets - and because the world of states is unwilling to outlaw and pursue the warlords that have been destroying Somalia for 20 years.