- The second part briefly looks at some of the issues that can arise when military actors take on roles traditionally conducted by civilian actors. Armed forces should be aware that their potential humanitarian contribution, while valued, could be ill-perceived or create problems. It attempts to situate Sphere in the realities and complexities of the contemporary civil-military debate.

In general, there have been a total of 17,173 handbooks sold during this period, of which just over 11,000 were in English. According to these figures, just over 1,600 copies were sold in each of Spanish and French. However it should be noted that lowcost reprints of the Handbook in Spanish in Latin America account for a further several thousand. Arabic sales for the period were 2,150, and this is before the ToT in Arabic in June 2007.