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You will find here short articles/stories written by community members about their own experience from implementation of Sphere in many different contexts and situations. You will find a lot of hints, insights, practical ideas about how to face challenges of Sphere compliance and Sphere implementation in practice.

You can also write your own article/story and send us your own experience. You have first to login and select "Send Sphere article" from the user menu on the left hand side of your screen. Your article/story will be first reviewed before it is published. Once published, any community member can then comment on it.

Read below the latest articles...


Sphere India Unified Response Strategy (URS): a model to take Sphere forward PDF Print
Sphere in Emergency Response
Monday, 24 November 2008

Sphere India Unified Response Strategy (URS) is an action-based project to build common understanding in different stakeholders for an organized and coordinated response. The vision is to bring various stakeholders at state level on a common platform, map the resources and capacities to identify gaps and overlaps and gradually build a common understanding for common assessment, common response plans, common monitoring and evaluation wherever possible.

URS was conceived as an Inter agency concept from numerous discussions and debates among the INGO-NGO-UN community hosted by Sphere India. Agencies intended to shorten disaster response time, clarify roles and responsibilities, streamline processes and minimize duplication of relief efforts through a well-coordinated mechanism.

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Sphere incorporated in Spain’s Humanitarian Action Strategy Plan PDF Print
Taking ownership of the Sphere handbook
Tuesday, 21 October 2008

    
The Spanish Government has incorporated Sphere in its recently developed Humanitarian Action Strategy for Spanish Development Cooperation. The inclusion of Sphere standards in the planning and project cycle systems constitutes a priority action within specific objective 1 of the Strategy to improve the capacity and efficiency of Spanish Cooperation’s humanitarian response.

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Tool for estimating nutrients in rations in line with Sphere Key indicators PDF Print
Food Security, Nutrition and Food Aid issues
Thursday, 28 August 2008
A latest version of the NutVal 2006 spreadsheet application for planning and monitoring the nutritional content of general food aid rations has been launched in line with the Sphere Project Key indicators for Nutrition. The program is in a Excel Spreadsheet (Version 2) and was released in August 2008. The program was developed by WFP with input from University College London and with financial support from WFP, UNHCR, UCL Futures, and the IASC Global Nutrition Cluster.

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I Reunión de Programas Integrales, Región Andes – Llanos, Venezuela, 11-12 de julio de 2008 PDF Print
Sphere institutionalisation
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
 
El 11 y 12 de julio del 2008, se llevo a cabo en la ciudad de Barinas – Venezuela, la “I Reunión de Programas Integrales, Región Andes – Llanos” de la Cruz Roja Venezolana, con la participación de 25 personas de los diferentes estado que conforman la región, Mérida, Táchira, Barinas, Apure y Trujillo, con la finalidad de la revisión y actualización de los Planes Operativos Locales (POL), de las Direcciones de Socorro, Salud y Bienestar Social, Voluntariado y Juventud, de esta prestigiosa institución.

 

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Echoes of Accountability from the field PDF Print
Making Sphere accessible to local communities
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Double click anywhere inside the clip
to view the video in full screen mode.
Watch this video of an interactive theatre that was organised by CWS P/A in Pakistan on Quality and Accountability in Humanitarian Assistance.

We Count...
 
Download the video.   
  

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Sphere usage by the Army during the Pakistan 2005 Earthquake Response PDF Print
Taking ownership of the Sphere handbook
Tuesday, 06 May 2008
The Feinstein International Center study about the "Humanitarian Agenda 2015 -- Perceptions of the Pakistan Earthquake Response" stated that the Sphere standards seemed to be a particular favorite of the military officers during the Pakistan 2005 Earthquake response. The army specifically requested and received Sphere training. A UN official commented on how the "the colonels started stealing our lingo and quoting IASC policies and Sphere standards." According to another UN official: "The military like standards, guidelines, accountability – they like to be able to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. That is why they liked the Sphere guidelines. They understand Sphere however as practical guidelines and standards, and not as humanitarian principles. We provided Sphere training to all brigadiers on up. Soon all were carrying their orange books under their arms and calling up agencies to hold them to account because their latrines were not up to standard."

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Humanitarians gather in Kabul to address Quality and Accountability in Afghanistan, 12th March 2008 PDF Print
Making Sphere relevant at Community level
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
 
Mr. Nejabat Safi of CWS-P/A and Mr. Abdul Safi of ECHO Afghanistan show a copy of the Sphere Handbook available in Dari and English at a humanitarian quality and accountability workshop hosted by URD and CWS-P/A in Kabul.
A workshop about "Humanitarian Quality & Accountability in Afghanistan, Lessons Learned and Challenges Ahead” was held on 12th March in Kabul. The workshop was organized by Group URD and CWS-P/A (Sphere Focal Point) in partnership with the GoA and HAP to share experiences and thoughts about current quality issues in Afghanistan.

Amidst the snow-capped mountains surrounding Kabul, a group of over 40 humanitarian workers, government officials, donors, foreign dignitaries and researchers gathered together to discuss quality and accountability for humanitarian interventions in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is at the forefront of the geopolitical issues and lately, news surrounding the country is focused on security, reconstruction and development. With billions of dollars in aid money being poured into Afghanistan – the question often asked is how is the money being spent and are the people benefiting? A recent report published by the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR) indicates ‘an estimated 40% of the money spent has been returned to rich donor countries…through corporate profits, consultant salaries and other costs, vastly pushing up expenditure,’ which can lead to questions regarding the effectiveness of aid in Afghanistan.

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The European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid advocates for International Standards including Sphere PDF Print
General issues
Monday, 03 March 2008

The Presidents of the European Commission, European Parliament and Council of the European Union on behalf of the 27 EU Member States signed on the 18th of December 2007 a 'European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid'. The Consensus sets out a common EU vision and a practical approach for reaching out effectively to millions of people worldwide suffering as a result of conflicts and natural disasters. 

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