Dr Christophe Paquet was appointed Head of the Health and Social Protection Unit of the French Development Agency (AFD) in August 2013. Medical Doctor (Rennes, France) graduated in public health and epidemiology (Berkeley, USA), Christophe Paquet carried out, in the 1980s, several humanitarian assignments with Médecins sans frontiers/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Central America, South-east Asia and East Africa. He was among the founders of Epicentre, an MSF research group and a WHO collaborating Centre for research in epidemiology, and was the manager of this group until 1999. Christophe Paquet then joined the French Institut de veille sanitaire (National Institute for Public Health Surveillance), in charge of the International and Tropical Department, while participating to several outbreak response missions with the WHO. He joined AFD in 2007 and worked for 6 years as Portfolio manager (Haiti, Comoros, SE Asia) in the Unit he now manages.