25 years of Sphere: What’s next for minimum humanitarian standards?

Sphere’s “25 years of Sphere” panel session at the Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week (HNPW) in Geneva on 27 April was one of the most highly anticipated and best attended sessions of the conference.

The session was hosted by William Anderson, Sphere’s Executive Director since early 2023.

“The Sphere Handbook is a must have resource for thousands of aid workers and policymakers. It’s 25 years old. The book is often a treasured possession, and in fact, it’s one of the first items to be packed alongside a toothbrush and a phone charger.”

William Anderson

Moderator and Sphere Governing Board member, Vanda Lengkong, asked Sphere’s esteemed panellists about how they came to be involved with Sphere.

First up was Nicholas Stockton, who cofounded the Sphere Project in 1997 and was the first Executive Director of HAP International, which later merged with People in Aid to become the CHS Alliance. He talked about his experiences of the Rwandan refugee camps in Goma in 1994.

“I remember very vividly on the C14, or whatever it was that we flew in from the UK on, there were four or five of us that were sort of supposedly involved in management or technical advice. The rest of it was just full of journalists and press officers.

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“And what happened over the next few weeks? First of all, roughly 60,000 people died under our noses. 30 odd thousand, 35 thousand, from cholera. But what was really different about this is that it happened on real time TV in a way that had never, ever happened before.”

Nicholas Stockton

Paula Reed Lynch is the Director of the Office of Policy and Resources Planning in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM/PRP).

Her office is responsible for the strategy, policy, planning and analysis that underlies PRM’s $4.9 billion (FY 2022) humanitarian budget. PRM/PRP provides training for PRM staff, coordinates proposals for funding research, and funds formal evaluations and global “best practice” organisations like Sphere.

“I think the emphasis on dignity is really crucial. That goes along with localisation. It goes along with not thinking that you have the answer because you have the standards and therefore you know exactly what to do in this small community.

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“It means that you know what’s needed and then you have to figure out how to make it contextually relevant with dignity for the community that you’re dealing with.”

Paula Reed Lynch

Susanna Davies has over 14 years’ experience in child protection and humanitarian response. She is currently the global co-lead of the Child Protection Minimum Standards (CPMS) Working Group at the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (CPHA), and a Senior Humanitarian Advisor at Save the Children.

“It’s very important to underline… that minimum humanitarian standards have positively changed the humanitarian landscape since the Sphere Handbook first edition was published 25 years ago, and I hope they will continue to do so.”

Susanna Davies

Tooba Siddiqi has over 12 years of experience in partnership management, advocacy, youth mobilisation, community engagement and resource development. She is a trainer and oversees quality and accountability for Community World Service Asia (CWSA), Sphere’s first focal point (since 2005) and first regional partner (since 2011).

“Localisation will only come if we are in a supportive role. We can’t empower people. We can’t empower NGOs. We can only help them to empower themselves. And we feel that Sphere has been in that supportive role – and not in an imposition role from the Western side of the border.

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“That has led to supportive two-way communications between Sphere and CWSA… and a very successful focal point system at the regional as well as country level.”

Tooba Siddiqi

Gabriel Godoy Cyrilo is a trainer and Humanitarian Aid Volunteer at Fraternity – International Humanitarian Missions (FIHM).

Gabriel has recent experience of applying Sphere – and Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) – standards in Roraima, Brazil, between 2020 and 2022, where FIHM worked to build lasting livelihoods with and for displaced people, including people from Venezuela (case study video).

“FIHM, along with Sphere, Save the Children and the Humanitarian Leadership Academy have been part of the Sphere Eastern Europe Programme. It’s been very important to share our practical knowledge into theory, and to bring Polish humanitarian agencies and humanitarian professionals into the Sphere knowledge.

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“I’m going to quote one of the participant’s speeches at the end of the workshop, ‘why was this Handbook not in my hands a year ago?’”

Gabriel Godoy Cyrilo

Panellists were then asked to reflect on what should come next.

“So the first thing that Sphere needs to do is to think about independence again… and how to operationalize that again so you can get back again to the places where you want to work and where you can be trusted again.

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“That’s why you’re going to be out of Sudan. That’s why most of you are out of Afghanistan.”

Nicholas Stockton

“We need to improve our data collection to make it more timely, accurate and interoperable among stakeholders. We also need to prioritize the integration of the data that we already have into humanitarian response and policymaking.

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“The Sphere indicators and monitoring guidance have moved the humanitarian community forward on this, but we need more and better data on humanitarian aid effectiveness and results on migration flows, statelessness and fragile markets.”

Paula Reed Lynch

“I’d like to see greater ownership of humanitarian standards by national and local actors who are critical for standards to be implemented and make an impact.

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“Many good examples of this do already exist, … but I think more action is certainly needed in this area, and collaborative work through the Humanitarian Standards Partnership brings the opportunity to pool resources and invest in solutions that increase access to humanitarian standards.”

Susanna Davies

“Language is one of the barriers for a lot of local NGOs… They lose an opportunity with communicating with other organizations or through webinars or training when these are only available in English.

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“We need support in terms of finances and in terms of thinking through how to go about it.”

Tooba Siddiqi

“Sphere has done a lot over the last 25 years… But it has room for more in regions like Africa, Middle East, Central America. It has room for way more.

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“Also the language. It’s not only about translation, as Tooba was saying, but the way we write it. How accessible is it to people to actually have the Handbook in their backpack, as William was saying, with their toothbrush and phone charger?”

Gabriel Godoy Cyrilo