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1.0 Background The Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response (SCHR) and InterAction, mindful of the continual need to improve the quality provided to people affected by disaster and to improve the accountability of agencies to their beneficiaries, their membership and their donors, embarked on a process to develop a humanitarian charter and a set of minimum standards in the core areas of disaster assistance. This process resulted in a handbook entitled Sphere Project: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response. The Minimum Standards (derived from our Humanitarian Charter, which is drawn from existing international law), is relevant to everyone with a legitimate claim to assistance in disaster situations. The Sphere Project produced the preliminary edition of the document, which offers a principled and practical framework for humanitarian action and minimum standards in core areas of disaster response. To undertake the dissemination and the implementation of this handbook, the SCHR and Interaction drew up a Phase II proposal in 1998, which has been funded by eight government donors as well as the agencies themselves. This report covers the first year of the two-year Phase II of the Sphere Project. 1. 1 Management Structure: As pointed out in the Phase II funding proposal document, the SCHR members and Interaction under the “Sphere Project” jointly manage this 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, MSF International, World Council Churches and Care International) and three members from Interaction (currently Interaction staff and two NGO members of InterActions’ Disaster Emergency Committee). Participating on the Management Committee as non-voting members are representatives from VOICE and ICVA, which provide the Project a broader base and wider dissemination of the Project. Quarterly meetings of the
management committee tool place in January, May and September 1999, to
monitor progress, give guidance and support to the project manager and
make decisions as and when required. The Phase II Project Manager
was appointed in October 1998 as planned and the Project Coordinator (Peter
Walker of IFRC) undertook the day to day management of that post.
2.0 Objectives 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. 2.1 Specific Goals The objectives were/are being achieved through the following work: Goal 1, dissemination of information about the Humanitarian Charter and the Minimum Standards developed in Phase I, throughout aid agencies, governments, and research/academic institutions: To date, the Project has:
The Sphere Project believes that just as the human rights that underlie the standards are understood be universal, so do the minimum standards themselves aspire to be universally applicable, although it is important to distinguish between the inalienability of rights, and the highly variable performance of states and other actors in upholding them. 1. In December 1999, the Sphere Project was invited to participate at ETIKUMA 99, a conference organized by BIOFORCE in Lyon, France. The conference was well-attended and the debate about the use of Codes and Standards in humanitarian work spirited and open. It was clear from the discussion that there is no unified or singular position regarding Sphere and that, in fact, many leading French humanitarian actors welcome the Humanitarian Charter and the Minimum Standards as a useful political and technical tool. Goal 2, trial the applicability of the Minimum Standards across a range of operational environments: Field studies were conducted over a wide range of conditions and contexts so as to ascertain whether the Minimum Standards of the Sphere Project were relevant, and that the indicators were appropriate. It was hoped that this survey would provide a more detailed knowledge of the problems and opportunities that arise as humanitarian agencies move towards using universal norms. While the office received some very useful responses, there were too few to provide meaningful data. The response rate was reduced by the Kosovo emergency, which naturally superceded agencies’ prior commitment to the Sphere field studies. Anecdotally, it appeared that the concept of universal standards was welcome and that the indicators were helpful. However, in some contexts (Angola, Sudan), the lack of access to populations in danger and the restrictive funding environment made it difficult to comment upon the application of the handbook. In India, the indicators for shelter were seen to be too high as victims of floods used whatever non-submerged land was available. The Sphere Management Committee and some technical staff held two meetings (May and September 1999), to review existing comments on the Minimum Standards, analyze feedback from the field studies, review the debate, and refine the handbook. Goal 3, reviewing and integrating the cross-cutting issues of gender and protection into the Humanitarian Charter and the Minimum Standards: During Year 1 of Phase II, the Project undertook two formal reviews of the preliminary handbook. For the gender review, the project contracted the services of the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women, an NGO based in New York and known for its extensive expertise on gender issues in emergencies. James Darcy, an attorney and a Regional Director for Oxfam-GB (and one of the primary resource staff for the drafting of the Humanitarian Charter) conducted the “protection” review. The need for an understanding of the overarching gender and protection issues involved in all emergency situations was emphasized in each review. Both consultants met with a range of specialists appropriate to the reviews. The gender review of
the Sphere Project: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster
Response addressed critical issues related to gender that had not been
sufficiently covered in the initial Sphere document. Among those
key issues were: (1) a lack of acknowledgment of the need for gender equity
in accessing humanitarian services and programs in emergency situations;
(2) a lack of attention to the specific issues of physical safety faced
by women and adolescent girls; and (3) a lack of emphasis on the equal
participation of women and men of the affected population in decision-making
with regard to humanitarian interventions.
The Women’s Commission stressed that the issue of gender violence had not been adequately dealt with in the preliminary Sphere document; there was scant mention of domestic violence and sexual exploitation. To remedy this problem, the revised handbook includes the Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP) in the section on health services. It is widely believed that the MISP is the most efficient means of preventing and managing the consequences of sexual violence, reducing HIV transmission, preventing excess neonatal and maternal morbidity and mortality, and providing comprehensive reproductive health services in the later phases of complex emergencies. A form for the reporting of incidences of sexual violence was also added to the appendices of the health services chapter. The protection review of the
Sphere Project: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster
Response was based on a distinction between protection activities, whose
primary purpose is to counter the type of threat that human acts or policies
can pose to the fundamental well-being of individuals and groups; and
the protection implications of relief activities, which may make people
more or less vulnerable to these threats. The review concentrated on the
latter. The question whether and how NGOs can most effectively engage
in protection activities is beyond the scope of the Sphere project, which
is not addressing protection activities per se. However, the Humanitarian
Charter recognizes that humanitarian assistance activities, whose primary
purpose is to provide for basic needs, can also have positive or negative
protection implications - by reason of the context in which they are conducted,
the way in which they are carried out, and their content 2.
The review was mainly concerned with the protection implications of providing relief assistance, as defined in the standards as they were drafted in the preliminary edition of Sphere. It assumed that there are potentially both positive and negative implications for protection of providing assistance in certain forms and in certain ways. The review concentrated on the need to minimize or eliminate the potential negative effects of humanitarian interventions - that is, anything that makes people more vulnerable to the threats described above. It also made recommendations for strengthening the links between the minimum standards and the principles set out in the Charter. For the most part, however, it was concerned not with legal issues directly but with more practical protection issues such as arise in the daily course of humanitarian assistance programmes. 2 Assistance and protection are sometimes described as being ‘two sides of the same coin’, given the close linkages between them. The distinction between the two is not a precise one 3 Whether an intervention is genuinely and exclusively humanitarian may be disputed. The Red Cross/NGO Code of Conduct, which is incorporated into Sphere, is perhaps the best general guide here, particularly on the questions of impartiality and independence. The Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, of course, has its own guiding principles of which these two form part. ___ Goal 4, developing and promoting training on the Sphere Standards: The training programme was developed and implementation begun to ensure widest possible awareness of the standards, to promote participation of aid agency personnel, to allow for the refinement of the technical content, and to assist agencies in moving towards a position where they can fulfill the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards. To date, a Training Manager
has been hired and has:
Goal 5, develop mechanisms for the handling of complaints: To date, an investigation into mechanisms for promoting compliance with Sphere and the quality assurance around the Sphere concepts has not commenced. The terms of reference have been drawn up and it is expected that a researcher will be appointed early in the second year of Phase II. The primary work of this undertaking will be to clearly describe the range of mechanisms and systems presently used for complaint-handling (in various fora) and to propose ways in which agencies committed to working towards the Sphere Standards can support compliance. The researcher will concentrate
on making recommendations for the ways in which NGO networks can effectively
handle complaints that are made from within a network (as opposed to outside
the network). The work will also propose ways in which the Sphere project
can promote knowledge and eventual use of suggested quality assurance
and complaint-handling methodologies. 3.0 Budget The Phase II budget total is $1,185,762. Of that, $530,682 has been collected and $341,536 expensed. The balance as of 31 October was $189,146. A finance report reflecting report period income, expenses and percentage of budget spent, is attached. (Annex 2) While the majority of expenses are very close to the original budget set, the overall expenditures are lower than anticipated. This is primarily due to delays in cashflow that subsequently delayed staff hiring and program implementation. It is planned to expense the full amount of the original budget in year two. The revised handbook will
be sold and distributed by Oxfam Publishing who are in a very strong position
to undertake the world-wide distribution of the handbook. While the revised
handbook will be for sale, the proceeds are not expected to amount to
much. Current funding is being used to underwrite editing, design, publication,
translations, and promotion expenses. 6.0 Looking ahead
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