The Sphere Project
Humanitarian Charter & Minimum Standards in Disaster Response
Phase II (November 1998 – October 2000) Final Narrative Report
1.0 Background
The Sphere Project was initiated in 1996 by the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response (SCHR) and InterAction, in response to their recognition of the need to improve the quality of aid provided to people affected by disaster, and the accountability of agencies to their beneficiaries, their membership, and their donors. The handbook, The Sphere Project: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response, published in its preliminary edition in 1998, was the result of a comprehensive process of evaluation of the levels of aid essential to human dignity in the core areas of disaster response, and offers a principled and practical framework for humanitarian action and minimum standards for use in disaster situations.
A Phase II proposal was drawn up by the SCHR and InterAction in 1998, to undertake the dissemination and implementation of the handbook. Thirteen government donors, as well as the agencies themselves, have funded Phase II activities.
1. 1 Management Structure
This project (as pointed out in the Phase II funding proposal document) is jointly managed by the SCHR members and InterAction under the “Sphere Project”.
The management committee consists of the SCHR members (International Save the Children Alliance, Oxfam International, Caritas Internationalis, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, International Committee of the Red Cross, Lutheran World Federation, Medecin Sans Frontieres International, World Council Churches/ACT and Care International) and three members representing InterAction (currently InterAction staff and two NGO members of InterActions’ Disaster Emergency Committee). Participating on the Management Committee as observer members are representatives from Voluntary Organisations in Cooperation in Emergencies (VOICE), and the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), providing the Project with a broader base and wider dissemination.
The Phase II Project Manager was appointed in October 1998 and continued in that capacity through the entirety of the phase.
Quarterly meetings of the Management Committee took place in November 1998, January, May and September 1999, and in February, May and October 2000, to monitor progress, give guidance and support to the project manager, and make decisions as and when required.
2.0 Summary
Phase II has seen a consolidation of the Sphere project’s unique role as a leading initiative in the humanitarian community to improve accountability and increase the quality of humanitarian interventions. The project has played a significant role in triggering a debate on how best to ensure the quality of humanitarian assistance.
This role is exemplified in all activities of the project – from the 15 field-based interagency workshops that have attracted over 750 participants, to the 19 pilot NGOs from ten countries that are systematically incorporating the use of the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards into their policy and practice; to the many academic institutions worldwide that include the handbook in their curricula.
Engagement with other actors in the humanitarian system includes UN agencies and national governments. Highlights include an endorsement by the IASC (Inter Agency Standing Committee) working group, the use of the Sphere minimum standards in a country-wide assessment of Angola by OCHA and its partners, and the growing use of Sphere indicators in CAP (Consolidated Inter-agency Appeals Process) proposals. The governments of Zambia, Turkey and the Philippines are incorporating the minimum standards into disaster planning and effort is underway in India for all Relief Commissioners to update their disaster response plans to Sphere minimum standards.
The project has developed tangible and practical tools for humanitarian actors including a set of training modules that have become very popular. In particular, the module titled Using Sphere in the Project Cycle provides hands-on, application-oriented exercises that illustrate the necessity of quality assessments and the usefulness of indicators in all aspects of the project cycle.
Over the two years of Phase II, The Sphere Management Committee approved changes to the budget due to pledge shortfalls and funding delays. All objectives of Phase II were met and a budget narrative explaining the changes is attached to the final financial report.
3.0 Overall Objective for Phase II
To disseminate and implement the Sphere Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards widely within the international humanitarian system and to encourage their adoption and practice by relief agencies and their donors.
A five-page summary of Phase II activities is attached to this report (Annex 1). Also, Narrative Report #1 (November 1999) and Narrative Report #2 (April 2000) cover the specific goals of the Project and have been submitted to all donors and are available on the website. This report focuses on the final six months that have not previously been covered in Interim Reports.
3.1 Significant developments in the final six months of Phase II
The work on the website in the final stages of Phase II focused on the development of a new design. The revised site is more user friendly and includes navigation tools, drop down menus, zipped files and an increased number of internal and external links.
The site reflects the significant amount of work undertaken by the project, and makes a large quantity of project information (i.e. workshop reports and evaluations, case studies, pilot program information) easily accessible.
The site is now available in French, Spanish, Portuguese and English and by the end of Phase II, monthly website hits increased to over 30,000. (Annex 2)
In the last six months of Phase II, the demand for all language versions of the handbook increased. The handbook distributor, Oxfam Publications, has sold 8,819 handbooks. (Annex 3)
Net income to the project is submitted quarterly (three months in arrears) and payments to date are recorded in the attached financial report.
There have also been a number of spontaneous translations including Japanese, Turkish, Albanian, Gujarati, and Tamil, Sinhala, Bengla and Bahasa editions are forthcoming. While these translations are most useful in their countries or regions of origin, the project plans to post on its website information regarding access (electronic and hard copy) to these editions.
A group of nineteen NGOs based in Africa, Asia, Europe, Central America and the USA have been systematically incorporating Sphere into policies and practice in disaster response. The Sphere Project is supporting this process and learning lessons from their experiences.
In July 2000, Sphere staff visited Sri Lanka and held meetings with NGOs, UN and Government agencies in Colombo, Mannar and Vavuniya. Although the team were refused permission to cross into Tamil controlled areas, Oxfam intervened and a very successful practice-based workshop was held, including needs assessment using the handbook in a displaced camp.
A Sphere working group has been set up, comprising agencies involved in emergency preparedness, contingency planning and emergency response, and Oxfam have advertised a post to bring Internally Displaced People camps up to Sphere standards. As a result, knowledge of the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards within Sri Lanka should broaden, providing valuable opportunities to work across the conflict lines.
Visits to eighteen of the Pilot agencies are now complete and workplans have been drafted. Okutiuka, a national NGO in Angola, was approved as the nineteenth Pilot agency at the end of Phase II.
The following issues have been discussed with all the pilot agencies:
· How the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards fits in with agencies’ organisational culture, policies and priorities
· Plans for training and dissemination within agencies
· Procedures and tools around the Project cycle, and the possibilities for mainstreaming the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards within these processes
· Disaster preparedness and coordination
3.2 Specific Objectives for the period 1st May 2000 – 31st October 2000
At the end of the last Interim Report (18 month report) a number of specific goals were outlined for the final six months of the Project. These had all been achieved or exceeded by the end of the period.
Conducting a Training of Trainers for 35 participants in Geneva
The workshop was held in the first week of May. Forty participants attended, representing great diversity and depth of experience, including staff from the pilot NGOs, independent consultants, and representatives from training organisations. Evaluations deemed the workshop a success and the responses contributed useful suggestions about the training materials. Some of the participants are now available to help fill the increasing demand for Sphere workshops. A second Training of Trainers workshop is planned for April 2001.
Completion and uploading to the website of the training modules
In response to feedback, the training modules have been comprehensively revised, including drafting a new module on the Project Cycle (Module 3) to incorporate monitoring, evaluation and analysis of the context of humanitarian work, and rewriting the Humanitarian Charter Module (Module 2) emphasising principles and core humanitarian values as well as dilemmas facing humanitarian action.
The updated and revised modules 1 (An Introduction to Sphere), 3 (Sphere and the Project Cycle) and 4 (Sphere and Disaster Preparedness) are posted on the Website with complete training materials, including case studies, facilitator notes and Powerpoint slides. Module 2 (The Humanitarian Charter in Detail) is undergoing revision and is currently available in outline form. The material is continually informed and updated in response to experience in the field and comments received.
Numerous academic institutions, independent training schools, and disaster management courses are incorporating the Sphere training materials into course work.
Conducting workshops in Burundi, Rwanda, El Salvador, Bosnia, and Mozambique
In the last six months, five interagency workshops have been held in the above countries, and one-day seminars in the London, Bonn and Luxembourg. These workshops attract a cross section of humanitarian actors and while hosted by international NGOs include national NGOs, UN, donors and government disaster or humanitarian ministries. Workshop reports and evaluations are posted on the website.
Producing a lessons-learned document on the challenges and opportunities of institutionalising the Humanitarian Charter of Minimum Standards within pilot agencies
The document has been produced in conjunction with the Pilot Agencies and is attached to this report (Annex 4).
It is hoped that this document will help satisfy the demand for examples of the practical application of Sphere, and provide useful guidance for organisations wishing to adopt the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards. The document incorporates a wide variety of experiences from Africa, Asia, Central America and Europe, and examples of using the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in the Project Cycle.
The Increasing Accountability research was completed, and copies sent to Management Committee members, interested parties, and all project donors, as well as posted on the website.
The report contains a classification of various existing compliance and accountability mechanisms, an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each mechanism and, finally, propositions for strengthening accountability within the NGO sector. The two main suggestions resulting from the research are improvement in the quality and transparency of NGO reporting, and joint assessments /evaluations by NGOs in the field.
The research was not satisfactory to all Management Committee members who expected a more complete review of complaint-handling mechanisms available outside of the humanitarian system.
Overseeing special funding from the Disasters Emergency Committee (UK) for a Portuguese translation and production of the handbook and training materials
The Portuguese translation is now complete, and the Handbook and training materials (including video) available. A Portuguese language workshop was held in Maputo in August 2000.
Continuing and expanding relationships with the UN operational agencies and identifying ways in which they can work more effectively with the handbook.
An important milestone in the Sphere process was the UN endorsement of Sphere at the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Working Group on 14th & 15th September 2000. The meeting recognised the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards as “an important tool for anyone working with populations affected by disaster” and
Called on all IASC members to promote the use of the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response within their organisations, particularly in their field operations.
This powerful endorsement should mark a significant development in the relationship between Sphere and UN agencies working with NGOs in disaster response.
At the invitation of Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Sphere staff met to discuss the ways in which the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards could be included in the Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal Process (CAP), and also reviewed the CAP training material with the intention of inserting Sphere, where appropriate.
In the last six months, over 40 presentations and half-day seminars have been held, ranging from presentations at UN operational agencies in Geneva to the Active Learning Network on Accountability and Performance (ALNAP) in London to academic institutions such as NOHA (Consortium of EU Universities) in Rome.
In response to queries raised by some French NGOs, Sphere participated in a Press Conference for the launch of the ETIKUMA European Symposium on Human Ethics. There is continued dialogue with NGOs that have raised questions and who are critical of the project.
4.0 Conclusion Phase II
The final six months of Phase II have built upon, and reinforced, the work of the earlier stages of the phase. The aim of the phase – to disseminate and implement the Sphere Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards widely within the international humanitarian system and to encourage their adoption and practice by relief agencies and their donors has been achieved. The workshops / seminars / presentations given in Phase II have brought 2000 individuals from all areas of the humanitarian community into direct contact with Sphere, and many of these individuals in turn will have acted as catalysts for the introduction of the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards into their agencies and organisations. The high demand for workshops and presentations, as well as for handbooks, videos and training materials, and the eight spontaneous translations of the handbook, indicate the widespread, positive reception of Sphere as a feasible and compelling humanitarian tool. Within the nineteen pilot agencies the institutionalisation of Sphere is advancing, and offers to research the application of the handbook in different contexts have been received from academic institutions, NGOs and other interested parties.
Phase II has introduced and made Sphere available to the humanitarian community, and the response to the Project has confirmed the importance of the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards. The challenge to the humanitarian community is now universally to adopt and implement the Sphere standards in disaster situations.
To support this end, a Phase III has been commissioned.
