This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Malteser International was formally established on 2 January 2005, but the work it now carries out did not begin on that date. It replaced the Emergency Corps of the Order of Malta, which had already been combining the international relief services of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta's national associations since 1992; the 2005 founding was a formalization and expansion of a coordination structure that had existed, in a less institutionalized form, for well over a decade before it took its present name. Headquartered in Cologne, Germany, the organization inherited that coordinating role rather than starting relief work from nothing.
What makes Malteser International's structure distinctive is its membership: rather than individual donors or member charities, its membership consists of the national associations and priories of the Order of Malta itself, a Roman Catholic lay religious order with a history reaching back to the medieval Knights Hospitaller and a status in international law shared by very few non-state organizations. Malteser International carries out emergency relief, healthcare, water and sanitation, and long-term development work across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East and North Africa, work that is centuries removed in method from the Order's medieval origins but institutionally continuous with the same body.