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Moving forward with Sphere 2020


Sphere Board meeting in Rome

See the


photo gallery.

In its first regular meeting of the year, the Sphere Board heard a report about the .

The first such workshop in a region affected by acute humanitarian crises, the Amman gathering showed a clear need for – and commitment to – building greater capacity to deliver aid commensurate with humanitarian standards. It also explored common challenges in doing so and shared possible ways to bring the implementation of Sphere standards up to scale across the 11 countries represented.

The Amman workshop built on strategic priorities.

Board members and representatives of Sphere’s four companion standards agreed on the value and opportunity of deepening their collaboration. They welcomed the idea of establishing a global humanitarian standards partnership to harmonise efforts in training, advocacy and field contextualisation.

Such a partnership will enable participants to address common challenges, learn from each other and develop activities that can best be undertaken together. Contextualisation, monitoring, training, institutionalisation and fundraising were some of the activities mentioned in this context.

Representatives of companion standards Minja Peuschel () participated remotely.

A scoping study to define the vision and value of such a partnership as well as possible models for its structure and sustainability will be carried out in the coming months. Such a partnership will build on Sphere’s companionship model while being open to other humanitarian standards to build coherence and efficiencies.

Sphere Board members and companion standards representatives met with officials of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to discuss opportunities to build collective action around accountability and standards.

Two new members were welcomed to the Board: Pauliina Parhiala, Director and Chief Operating Officer at ACT Alliance, and Greg Ramm, Vice President for Humanitarian Response at Save the Children US. They succeeded Gaim Kebreab and Hana Crowe, respectively, to whom the Board expressed gratitude for their faithful services.

The International Council of Voluntary Agencies, which currently hosts the Sphere Project office, will continue to do so until the end of May 2016. Arrangements beyond mid-2016 will be discussed later in light of the new Sphere strategy and of the findings of the above-mentioned scoping study and stakeholder consultation.

Caritas Internationalis generously hosted the Board meeting at its headquarters in Rome. The meeting was attended by 15 of the 18 Board members and three Sphere staff.