ESCP ALUMNI magazine - Special Issue 2022 - 46

Career ❙ Story
By Florian Lefèvre
" We save at least
30,000 people a year. "
The ALIMA (Alliance for International Medical Action) aims at pushing the limits of humanitarian
action by partnering with local actors at the instigation of Augustin AUGIER (03) and Guillaume
LE DUC (03), who were flatmates when ESCP students.
many skills; personally speaking, I have done
things that are as rewarding as they are dangerous
and risky. "
Guillaume LE DUC (03)
co-founder and Director
of development ALIMA
B
efore being a humanitarian aid
worker, Augustin Augier used
to work at the French National
Assembly. He used to write speeches,
bills, and amendments for the economic
and financial commission. But he grew
disappointed by the parliamentary system,
" which is a shadow play where almost nothing
happens " ; in 2005, he joined Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF) and went to South Sudan.
Needless to say, the working conditions
were different... From Palais Bourbon to
a hut in the middle of nowhere. Life was
different, too. " In 2006, in Darfur, we were
staying at the heart of the camp; the roads
surrounding the city were secured by armed
forces, " he recalls. " We could only get in or out
on a helicopter, only once every three months. "
The young project manager was there to
get hospitals running. Sometimes, he even
sat down at the negotiating table with war
leaders. " I quickly realised that humanitarian
aid was a very interesting field, " he says.
" Professionally speaking, it has helped me grow
46 ❙
Back then, Guillame Le Duc worked for
the MSF communication department
in New York. He became an operational
project manager and went to Niger and
the Democratic Republic of Congo. This
is the story of how Augustin Augier and
Guillaume Le Duc were reunited on a mission
in the DRC, a few years after being
flatmates and ESCP students. It was live
on Sky News. " Hostilities had resumed. We
had decided to make the conflict public in the
media, " says Augustin. Nowadays, a decade
later, they work together every day as medical
humanitarian aid workers. They are
the heads of ALIMA, an NGO with more
than 2,000 employees, an €80M budget in
2020, and which operates in 12 countries.
Augustin Augier is the managing director
and Guillaume Le Duc is the head of the
development department. They co-founded
ALIMA in 2009 with a dozen ex-MSF
people. " This project is like a business. It was
like creating a start-up, but we did not have
any shareholders and our aim was to save
lives, " says Guillaume Le Duc.
ALIMA's headquarters and social
body in Dakar
Why would you leave a big company
like MSF, its 36,000 employees and the
1999 Nobel Prize, to start from scratch?
Because big NGOs like MSF are subject
to blockages, difficulties, internal politics
issues, etc. " I was 30 and I wanted more
ESCP Alumni Magazine Special issue ❙ 2022
freedom to create specific solutions to each problem, "
explains Augustin Augier. There were
also problems in terms of humanitarian,
innovation, and governance needs. " The big
NGOs are often based in Paris, Geneva, or New
York. They usually are based in the Northern
hemisphere. We could see that MSF managers
based in Africa did not have enough opportunities, "
adds Guillaume Le Duc. Though
there are ALIMA offices in Paris and New
York, the headquarters and social body
are in Dakar. " 85% of our senior executives
are African. We wanted to anchor ALIMA in
Africa, " says Augustin Augier.
This project is
like a business. It
was like creating
a start-up, but we
did not have any
shareholders and
our aim was to
save lives.

ESCP ALUMNI magazine - Special Issue 2022

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