Board members
The Sphere Project Board is made up of the following representatives of Board organizations (partial list):
Simon Eccleshall
is Head of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Disaster and Crisis Management Department. Previously, he worked for the IFRC in different capacities in Uganda, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka. Simon started his career assisting internally displaced people to build transitional shelters in Sri Lanka in the early '90s. Later on, he managed humanitarian aid and development programmes in Asia and the Pacific with AusAID. With CARE International, Simon managed refugee camps in Jordan during the 2003 Iraq crises. He also worked with CARE in Myanmar and Vietnam. He holds an MA in development studies and a BA (Hons) in economic development and political science.
Erik Johnson (Chair)
is Head of Humanitarian Response at DanChurchAid. He started his humanitarian career in West Africa, where he worked for five years mainly in relief operations during the civil wars of the '90s, with the Peace Corps, Oxfam, Merlin, and the International Rescue Committee. Afterwards, he worked with Oxfam in the occupied Palestinian territories during the second Intifada, before taking up his present post at DanChurchAid. Erik has contributed to Sphere deployments in Pakistan, Myanmar, and Haiti. He has written articles for the Humanitarian Practice Network, the Los Angeles Times, and the Emergency Nutrition Network Field Exchange, amongst others. He has a BS, BA in biology and literature from the University of California, San Diego. He represents the Lutheran World Federation / DanChurchAid on the Sphere Project Board.
Unni Krishnan (Vice Chair)
is Head of Disaster Preparedness and Response at Plan International. With over 20 years of experience in humanitarian and health action, he has worked in disaster and conflict situations such as the Indian Ocean tsunami, Afghanistan, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, China, Haiti, Iran, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Turkey, Japan and the Horn of Africa. Before joining Plan, Unni worked with ActionAid, Oxfam and other humanitarian and health actors such as the People's Health Movement. He has served on governmental, inter-agency, academic and UN panels and as a guest faculty in several universities. He writes regularly on health and humanitarian issues. Unni is a medical doctor with a degree from Madras University, and studied Humanitarian Action at the Central Medical University, Geneva.
Robert Laprade
is Associate Vice President of the Division of Humanitarian Response for Save the Children USA. He worked in field programme leadership positions for over a decade in conflict-affected countries in Africa, including Mozambique, Angola, Somalia and Sudan with CARE International; most recently he was Senior Director for Emergencies and Humanitarian Assistance at CARE USA. Previously with Save the Children as Director of Emergencies and Protection, he led responses in Iraq, Darfur, and in response to the Asian tsunami. Bob was also Programme Director for the American Red Cross tsunami recovery programme for five years. He has a BA in anthropology and an MBA in logistics and transportation. He represents Save the Children Alliance on the Sphere Project Board.
Rebecca Larson
is Deputy General Secretary of the ACT Alliance. Previously, she was Executive Director, Church in Society of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and worked with the Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of Churches on humanitarian, development and advocacy issues. In 2004, Rebecca participated in the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response's ten-year review of the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief. She was a member of the coordinating committee of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. A Canadian, Rebecca holds a PhD in international development education from the University of Calgary and an MDiv from Waterloo Lutheran Seminary.
Martin McCann
is Chief Executive of RedR UK. He has been involved in international development and humanitarian work for the last 30 years, ranging from a two-year volunteer posting in West Africa to seven years as Programme Director of Plan International. Martin also worked at Practical Action, is a Trustee of War Child UK, Engineers without Borders UK, Project Management 4 NGOs and was the founding Chair of the pan-agency Hope for African Children Initiative. He is a member of the Steering Group of Enhancing Learning and Research for Humanitarian Assistance. He holds an MA in rural development from the University of East Anglia. Martin represents RedR International on the Sphere Project Board.
Mamadou Ndiaye
is Executive Director of the Senegal-based African Office for Development and Cooperation (OFADEC). He has worked in the humanitarian sector for more than ten years, focusing on accountability, policy issues and outreach to humanitarian and development actors. Mamadou is the focal point for African national humanitarian NGOs in West Africa and a member of the National African Humanitarian NGO Task Force. He is an active member of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) Board and has also been a member of the Human Accountability Partnership (HAP) Board. Under his leadership, OFADEC has been certified against HAP's Standard in Humanitarian Accountability and Quality Management. His academic background is in economics and agriculture.
John Plastow
is the Programme Director for CARE International UK; his organization takes the lead in CARE’s global work on shelter in emergencies. Before joining CARE, John worked in crisis response management for a variety of international NGOs either from the UK or in the field in Iraq, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Kenya and other countries. He contributed to efforts to achieve greater accountability to disaster-affected communities in Sri Lanka and Sudan in the 1990s. John has worked extensively in drylands in various country contexts. He has maintained a strong interest in supporting the adaptive capacity of drylands communities who experience recurrent cycles of drought and other disturbances to their livelihoods systems. John holds an MA in rural development from the University of East Anglia. He represents CARE International on the Sphere Project Board.
Karin Settele
is Managing Director of Help (Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe), one of the founding member organizations of Germany’s relief coalition Aktion Deutschland Hilft. Karin has been working in the field of disaster management and long-term development for more than 20 years. She started her humanitarian work in Zimbabwe, where she lived in the early 90s. Karin has been involved in disaster response and conflict-related emergencies in Mozambique, Angola, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Nicaragua, Algeria, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan and the Indian Ocean Tsunami area. Karin’s special focus is on a participatory and sustainable approach in all steps of relief, rehabilitation and development as well as on self-enhancement for self-help. She studied economics, social science, biology and history and holds a Diploma in geography.
Drew Ruthven
currently coordinates the Salvation Army's disaster recovery services, based in London. In his nearly 30 years as a Salvation Army officer (Pastor), he has held a wide variety of positions ranging from congregation minister in Australia to supervising the organization’s properties in Papua New Guinea. Drew has been involved with emergency work for over 25 years. In recent years, he has been engaged in disaster management field work on all five continents. He led the organization’s relief work in Japan and Pakistan and played an important role in the work in Haiti. Drew has supervised and served in many humanitarian response contexts around the world involving shelter, food relief, medical services and camp situations.
Ed Schenkenberg van Mierop
is Executive Director of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA). In this capacity, he leads and manages the ICVA network. As ICVA representative, he participates in international humanitarian coordination mechanisms like the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), and has been involved in reviewing and supporting humanitarian response in countries like Pakistan, Sudan and Zimbabwe. In his policy work, Ed has focused on humanitarian principles, protection and the relations of humanitarian agencies with military forces. He co-authored the chapter on protection principles in the Sphere Handbook 2011 edition and is a member of the peer review committee of DARA's Humanitarian Response Index. He holds a degree (LLM) in international law from Leiden University.
Julien Schopp
is the Director of Humanitarian Practice at InterAction. In this capacity, he supports humanitarian emergency responses and contributes to the improvement of humanitarian practice on behalf of the network’s members. Before joining InterAction, Julien worked as a Senior Policy Officer for the International Council of Voluntary Agencies, focusing on Forced Displacement issues. As such, he was the primary NGO focal point at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Julien has substantial field experience managing humanitarian operations, primarily for the International Rescue Committee (IRC). Over the years, he has worked as IRC country director in Ethiopia, Ivory Coast and Uganda, also serving the agency in Congo-Brazzaville, Sudan and Chad. He holds an MA in literature from Paris X University.
Elena Sgorbati
is Head of Intermon Oxfam's Humanitarian Unit in Barcelona. Since her appointment in 2007, she has widened the Unit's scope of action at headquarters and at field level. Before joining Oxfam, she worked for Médecins Sans Frontières Switzerland and Spain. Elena is also a member of the Oxfam International Humanitarian Consortium Management Group and lectures on humanitarian issues at various Spanish universities. She has a Diploma on immigration from the Barcelona Centre for International Studies and a Certificate on environmental health, international humanitarian law, epidemiology and public health management from the University of Hawaii. Elena represents Oxfam International on the Sphere Project Board.
Mike Weickert
is Director of Humanitarian and Emergency Affairs at World Vision Canada. With more than 17 years working on disaster management and long-term development to his credit, Mike has been involved in disaster responses in countries such as Sudan, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Myanmar, Indonesia, Mexico and Haiti. He is also a part-time professor at Humber College in Toronto where he teaches disaster management. He has lived and worked in Africa, South Asia and Latin America and has an MA in political studies from the University of Guelph. Mike is a member of the Sphere Project Board on behalf of the Policy Action Group on Emergency Response.
Jan Weuts
is Caritas International Belgium Emergency Aid Coordinator. Before joining Caritas, he worked for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Belgium, where he oversaw logistics and technical coordination in Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as in Iraq and Iran. Jan is a member of MSF Belgium's Board; he has also been involved in MSF's training programmes since 1992. Jan is a member of Caritas Europe's Humanitarian Affairs Committee and of the European Interagency Security Forum, and lectures on humanitarian management at the Catholic University of Louvain. He has a degree in modern history from the Vlaamse University in Brussels. Jan represents Caritas Internationalis on the Sphere Project Board.