The Core Humanitarian Standard in your mailbox

The Sphere Project will send a copy of the CHS in English to anyone interested (*). Just fill out this online form and the Sphere office will take care of the rest. Free of charge. First-come, first-served.

“We are excited to announce this effort to put the new Core Humanitarian Standard in the hands of Sphere practitioners,” says Sphere Director Christine Knudsen.

“The first step towards putting the Core Humanitarian Standard in practice is to make it available to those who would like to start using it in their work and we hope this campaign will help achieve just that,” she adds.

The result of a collaborative process involving the Groupe URD (Urgence, Réhabilitation, Développement), the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership, People In Aid and the Sphere Project, the CHS is a voluntary code that describes the essential elements of principled, accountable and quality humanitarian action.

It draws together key elements of several existing humanitarian standards and commitments including the Red Cross/Red Crescent and NGO Code of Conduct, the Sphere Handbook Core Standards and the Humanitarian Charter, the 2010 HAP Standard, the People In Aid Code of Good Practice and the Quality COMPAS method developed by Groupe URD.

The CHS will replace the 2010 HAP Standard, the People In Aid Code of Good Practice and the Core Standards section of the Sphere Handbook. It will also be integrated into the Quality COMPAS reference framework.

In order to make the CHS fully operational, a set of indicators and guidance notes are being developed. A first version will be made available for widespread consultation across the humanitarian sector between 15 April and 30 June.

The consultation will include field-testing and opportunities to contribute feedback. It will be open to all interested stakeholders, including Groupe URD, HAP, People In Aid and Sphere constituencies. UN and donor agencies, Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) task teams and humanitarian clusters will also be involved.

The final version of the CHS indicators and guidance notes will be ready in September 2015.

(*) Offer limited to 2,000 copies, one copy per person.