First and foremost, please inform the Sphere Project office of the translation you are planning to carry out; this will allow for the information to be shared more widely and also for the office to provide the necessary support where required.

1. The Sphere Handbook to be translated is the 2010 edition. The training materials to be translated will be developed on the basis of the 2010 Handbook edition (expected to be available in English towards the end of 2011).

2. Identify and use a professional translator, preferably someone that is familiar with humanitarian work.

3. Get a group of mother-tongue “humanitarians” from different agencies working in the country/language to meet in order to agree on terminology, key terms and concepts and on the translation process. (Ideally, from this meeting the group could propose/appoint a contact person for the translator to be in contact with during the whole process, see below: Useful practices.)

4. Identify and use a professional proofreader other than the translator.

Please remember to adapt the back cover and the copyright page (usually either the inside of the front cover or the first page) to reflect both the source of the new document and the authorship of the original. The following points in particular need to be considered:

5. The authorship of The Sphere Project must be acknowledged. Please make sure that inside the publication (on the copyright page) a note is made to acknowledge the original publication, using the following format:

“This <language> edition of <title> is published by <publisher> of <address> in 20xx. This is a translation from the <original language> edition of <title>, first published in 2011 under the ISBN <insert original ISBN>”.

Indication of contact details of the Sphere Office is recommended.

6. A disclaimer needs to be included on the copyright page, stating: “This handbook was independently translated by the following agencies…”

7. Contact details of the producer and distributor of the new publication should be included.

8. No institutional logos should be inserted.

9. The ISBN and bar code of the Sphere Handbook in English, French, Spanish, Arabic or Russian must be removed from the cover of the new publication.

The ISBN and bar code are unique to each language and the publisher; you can apply for an ISBN from your local ISBN agency (for information see http://www.isbn-international.org/en/agencies.html).

Where there is no ISBN issuing agency you can either use one issued for a participating agency in another country. (for example, 92 is the ISBN prefix used by international agencies and UN organizations), or simply not include an ISBN.

10. The translation must be made available to all actors in the humanitarian assistance community (i.e. sharing) regardless of who undertakes the work.

11. No agency, collections of agencies or individuals realise any financial gain from the translated text. The Handbook can be sold but at not more than cost price for the translation and production. This is to ensure that the price remains affordable for all.

12. The organisation(s) in charge of the translation will send a

final electronic copy to the Sphere Office ( This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

And two printed hardcopies to the Sphere Project office:

The Sphere Project,

P.O. Box 372,
1211 Geneva 19,

Switzerland).

And one printed hardcopy to

Note: These guidelines do not cover actual production and publishing issues, which vary from country to country. If you want to discuss this and receive assistance for organising your undertaking, please call the Sphere office

(+41-22-730 45 01 or e-mail at info (at) sphereproject.org).

Contact with Sphere office: One overall contact person should be identified who can keep the Sphere office informed about the progress of the translation, production and distribution processes.  If The Sphere Project office remains informed, it can share the translations and related information with the Sphere community.

Key terms and concepts: as described in point 3, get consensus on key terminology and concepts OR use an already approved glossary and make clear to your translator this is the terminology to be used.

Communication with translator: it is essential to effectively communicate with your translator, especially at the beginning of the process. We suggest you identify a contact person, ideally a native speaker with excellent writing skills, working for an agency involved in disaster response. This person should be willing to spend some quality time reviewing first few pages of the translation and to be in regular contact with the translator.

Proofreading: If your resources permit, hire a proofreader to review the whole translation (make sure s(he) knows about the key terms and concepts your group has already agreed upon) for grammar, punctuation, proper page order, etc. If resources are limited, the contact person could do this review.

Training materials: It is useful to translate the Sphere training materials along with the handbook, once they are available (foreseen towards the end of 2011). The training materials provide very practical presentations and case studies on how to use the handbook in disaster response preparation and operations.

As with the handbook text, the training materials (until the end of 2011 of the 2004 Handbook version) are available on the website (www.sphereproject.org) in English, French and Spanish. The same guidelines listed above apply to these materials.