In Ethiopia, there was an emergency capacity building workshop during January 24 - 27, 2007 in Southern part of the country organized by NCA (Norwegian Church Aid in collaboration with ACT). There were about 43 participants represented from local government organizations and NGO's. Sphere was part of the capacity building component.

In this workshop, an introductory part of sphere project was covered, some points on Standards common to all sectors, the application of Minimum standards, Key indicators and Guidance note in technical sectors, and finally the 9Min sphere film was shown.
 
Although, only one day was committed for sphere, we have tried to see the historical process, the corner stone of sphere, understanding of humanitarianism and provision of international low, conventions and covenants were well dealt. Finally, group discussions followed on Opportunities and constraints in  internalizing of sphere.
 
Opportunities

1. Ethiopia is one of the UN member state signed on international low and other legal provisions.
2. The Local constitution allows to adopt such materials.
3. The Government Humanitarian (Disaster Preparedness and Response Agency) sector adopted various elements of sphere in its policy document, such as Emergency Nutrition Guideline, Early Warning Assessment tool kit, etc.
4. Sphere is consistent with right based approach  and many agencies are applying this approach in their program implementations.
5. Sphere avoids ad hock approach and governs NGOs and Government organizations through agreed standards, and which was one of the constraints in the past.
 
Constraints

1. Since sphere has global nature it requires Government commitment at higher level.
2. Some standards may not be attainable due to chronic existing situation before the disaster. The minimum standards are much higher than the usual situation of community during normal time.
3. The capacity limitation of local government to address actual needs
4. Politicization of the right issue
5. Price and accessibility of the book
6. Limited trained personnel in the country (Training of Trainers)
 
These are some of the issues raised and discussed. The training organizers promised to organize the continuation of sphere training with full packages.
 
Generally, in Ethiopia there is a good move towards understanding of humanitarianism and right of stakeholders, several attempts has been made to use sphere in program designing, project monitoring and evaluation. Donors are requesting sphere elements in proposals and evaluates projects against to sphere standards.