Some common questions about Sphere
- What is meant by Sphere’s reference to dignity?
The principle of the right to life with dignity in the Humanitarian Charter is drawn from the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Life with dignity implies a level beyond provision of basic life-saving assistance, and is a powerful and important principle for the humanitarian system.
Every person has a different perception of what dignity means. Consequently, participation is essential for people to define a programme that helps them achieve their right to life with dignity. The importance of participation of the women and men from the disaster-affected population is emphasised throughout the handbook.
- Is the United Nations involved with the Sphere Project?
Many UN technical staff participated in the development of the Minimum Standards and the handbook contains frequent references to WHO, WFP, UNICEF, UNHCR and OCHA. Additionally, the UN’s Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) has endorsed the handbook and called upon all its members to use the handbook. Sphere standards and indicators are also used in the Interagency Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP).
- Is Sphere useful if my organisation has limited funds?
Yes – Sphere is useful in two ways for organisations with a limited budget:
- Many aspects of the Minimum Standards define good practice without requiring additional expense.
- The Humanitarian Charter and the Minimum Standards can be used to lobby for funding. They are a powerful advocacy tool, helping to quantify what is needed to enable people to achieve a life with dignity.
- We are just a small organisation, what if we can only reach 50% of standards?
Minimum Standards require a range of indicators (quantitative and qualitative) in order to be measured accurately. Some indicators may not be attainable by an organisation in a given context. This does not necessarily mean the organisation is inefficient or irresponsible. The gap should be justified by contextual factors, and used to lobby for additional resources.
- Our organisation is government-funded. Will Sphere provide donors with a means of control?
In a context where all NGOs depend on funding and donors increasingly base funding on evaluations of agencies’ performance, funding is fraught with political hazard. However, the Sphere Minimum Standards pose no greater opportunity for misuse by donors than any other funding criteria.
Ideally the establishment of Sphere Minimum Standards as a coherent and objective set of funding criteria would help displace idiosyncratic or politically-motivated decisions.
- What if the Sphere standards are higher than those of the local population?
In countries where vulnerability to disasters is high and/or where there is widespread poverty, humanitarian aid providers may find that local populations live below the Minimum Standards every day. However, the disaster-affected population may initially need more resources to survive as their coping strategies have been severely diminished and their health may be weakened through trauma and a lack of sufficient food or clean water.
Guidance notes throughout the Sphere handbook emphasise:
- that local norms must be part of the analysis before deciding what the assistance levels are
- the protection issues that arise from discrepancies between disaster affected populations and host populations.
- Why focus on standards when grave issues such as lack of access to affected populations exist?
The Sphere Project was initiated for the specific purpose of improving the quality and accountability of humanitarian response. Contributors have never imagined that Sphere would address all the problems in humanitarian response. Dedication to enhanced quality does not amount to a panacea.
Any attempt to protect people’s right to life with dignity through the use of Minimum Standards alone would be insufficient and erroneous.
However, Minimum Standards are a key component of an accountability framework. Although Sphere was never intended to address problems of access to populations subject to political restrictions, it does provide a tool to raise awareness that all populations are entitled to the same services if they are affected by conflict or calamity.
Ultimately, the fact that all people in disasters do not have access to a life with dignity, irrespective of why, is the main reason for the existence of Sphere.