Online courses

Learn how to promote Sphere within your network, and how this benefits the people affected by crisis and disaster that you serve. By the end of the module, you will be able to explain:

• the Sphere Approach to humanitarian response;
• The usefulness of the Sphere Handbook to prepare, manage and coordinate humanitarian relief efforts;
• the benefits of using the Sphere Handbook to fulfil a commitment to quality and accountability; and
• the first steps to advocating for Sphere within your network.

After completing this course, you will be able to:

• describe the Sphere Approach to humanitarian assistance;
• summarise the contents of the Sphere Handbook;
• apply minimum standards, indicators and guidance notes to challenges encountered by humanitarians;
• reflect on how to use the Handbook to better assist people affected by crises; and
• list sources of additional information to help you use the Handbook.

After completing this course, you will be able to:

• explain the connections between climate change and humanitarian crises;
• describe what Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are and the role they play in humanitarian action;
• use the Sphere Unpacked Guide: Nature-based Solutions for Climate Resilience in Humanitarian Action; and
• identify ways to integrate NbS into your own work to improve outcomes for human well-being and environmental protection.

Do you want to know how to put Sphere standards and principles into practice? Do you already include Sphere in your humanitarian work but want to know how to use it better? Do you already know Sphere but want to discover how it is applied in different crises and scenarios? Are you new to humanitarian work, and so have little or no knowledge of Sphere? Are you interested in finding out more about Sphere?

If your answer to any of these questions is ”yes”, then you will benefit from taking this course.

This collection of free resources from reputable health organizations such as WHO, CDC, KonTerra, and EJ4 will help responders of COVID-19 to work safely and promote infection prevention, preparedness and well-being during this pandemic.

In countries where the health systems are already fragile and where confining the population is impossible, mitigating the spread of the virus and protecting front-line staff and volunteers is an absolute priority. In such contexts, large scale communication and application of preventive measures is critically important, and building awareness of the population has become a major public health challenge. This mission will be carried out by a wide variety of actors (State, community based organisations, national and international humanitarian organisations …) working with local communities, both in urban and rural areas.

The COVID-19 Learning Pathway aims to enable humanitarians, including local responders, to be best equipped to respond to the global pandemic COVID-19 (Coronavirus).

This comprehensive online course delves into the Health Section of the Sphere Handbook. It is designed to equip you with essential knowledge and skills in humanitarian health response. Through a series of eleven engaging sessions, the course covers critical topics such as healthcare delivery, disease prevention, mental health support, and nutrition in crisis settings.

Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response: The Application of Sphere Standards is a free video-based online course offered by The Collaborating Centre for Oxford University and CUHK for Disaster and Medical Humanitarian Response (CCOUC) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Organized in five lessons, the course systematically explains the main contents and practice of Sphere, including an introduction to the Sphere organisation; the origins and core beliefs of Sphere; the Humanitarian Charter; Protection Principles; the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS); and the technical chapters as presented in the 2018 edition of the Sphere Handbook.

The Minimum Economic Recovery Standards, or the MERS, are internationally recognised standards aimed at enhancing the effectiveness and quality of economic aid for markets in crisis.
 
What does this mean? Watch this 3-minute video to find out.
 
Visit the SEEP Network's Vimeo channel for more videos: https://vimeo.com/theseepnetwork

An online self-study course to develop a good conceptual understanding of the steps involved in market assessments and basic skills in how to apply this understanding in real-life settings.
 
This 3.5 hour online course is designed to provide future humanitarian market assessment team members with a solid understanding of the theory and steps of market assessments so that they can join assessment teams prepared with a basic understanding of what they will be doing and why. Learners will be guided through the common steps within market assessments, using a fictional emergency scenario as a basis. This course is relevant to most types of emergency market assessment, including EMMA, RAM, MAG, the 48-Hour Tool, the WFP VAM and PCMA.
 
This course is aimed at humanitarian workers with an understanding of market assessments. After completing the course participants will have gained a solid understanding of the theory and steps of market assessments.
 
Visit the Cash Learning Hub (free Kaya login required) for more learning resources: https://kayaconnect.org/course/view.php?id=491

Select this e-learning to learn how to:

• define disability, impairment and root causes;
• identify the models of disability, from charity to the human rights-based model;
• define the categories of impairments;
• explain the challenges faced by older people and people with disabilities in humanitarian contexts, and factors increasing their vulnerability;
• define older age and the perceptions of ageing and attitudes towards older people; and
• improve attitudes towards people with disabilities.

Three e-learning courses: Comprehensive accessible humanitarian assistance for older people and people with disabilities, Understanding older people and their needs in a humanitarian context, and Basic principles of disability inclusion in humanitarian response, are available from the following site (in English and Arabic), along with core training materials to build into your own training materials to make them more inclusive: https://www.helpage.org/what-we-do/emergencies/adcap-age-and-disability-capacity-building-programme/

Made for all humanitarians, this video focuses on the Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action - Standards to Work Across Sectors for preventing and responding to the protection risks children face. By taking a holistic and multi-sectoral approach, we can achieve our collective responsibility to uphold the Centrality of Protection, and build stronger, more effective programmes that improve outcomes for every child.

Visit the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action's YouTube channel for this and other great training videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheAllianceCPHA

Learn about the Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (CPMS) and how they can be applied in practice. Updated in 2021, this is a free, self-guided online course. It offers more than 10 learning modules introducing the CPMS, its principles and specific child protection standards. On finishing the core components, you may download and/or print a certificate of completion.

The Conflict Sensitive Education Online Course is a free, interactive e-learning course designed to give a broad overview of education considerations in conflict environments. This course is intended for field practitioners, donors, and other professionals working in the field of education in emergencies.
 
The CSE Online Course content is divided into the following five modules:

1. What is Conflict Sensitive Education?
2. What is Conflict Analysis?
3. Conflict Sensitive Strategies for Community Participation, Coordination, and Analysis.
4. Conflict Sensitive Strategies for the INEE Minimum Standards.
5. Conflict Sensitive Education Monitoring and Evaluation.

Based on the INEE Conflict Sensitive Education Pack, and developed in coordination with INEE members and Truscribe, this video illustrates conflict sensitive strategies for each of the INEE Minimum Standards five domains:

1. Community Participation, Coordination and Analysis,
2. Access and Learning Environment,
3. Teaching and Learning,
4. Teachers and Other Education Personnel,
5. Education Policy.

To download the video and to access the series of training webinars, visit https://www.ineesite.org/en/conflict-sensitive-education/cse-training-videos-webinars

Select this resource to increase your knowledge of:

• why education in emergencies if life-saving and life-sustaining;
• what defines safe and quality education in emergencies; and
• what the INEE Minimum Standards are and how they can be applied to a refugee situation.

The target audience includes:

• Ministry of Education (MOE) representatives
• Donor agencies
• University students studying education in emergencies

HelpAge International established the Knowledge and Resource Hub to develop and provide training, and tailored adhoc support to local, national, and international organisations, private sector organisations, and government to mainstream older people in their policies and humanitarian interventions. This hub serves as a centre and meeting point for all project stakeholders to exchange experiences and best practices.

The Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (CPMS) set out common principles and critical actions to keep children safe from abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence -- and to holistically support their well-being. They provide important guidance and standards for all humanitarians, including through the standards to work across sectors. Visit the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action's YouTube channel for this and other great training videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheAllianceCPHA

This introductory e-course is for anyone currently working with and for children in humanitarian settings, as well as all child protection workers who want to prepare themselves for a potential humanitarian crisis.

The LEGS Core Training Refresher Course reviews the LEGS approach. This course will support your understanding in how to use LEGS in assessment and response identification as well as how to use the LEGS approach in response planning.

Select this e-learning if you’d like to:

• learn about gender issues in planning and implementing livestock-based emergency responses;
• get insights into gender analysis; and
• discover some practical tools to support these processes.

Watch this video if you’re looking for a quick and lively introduction to LEGS: what it is, where it came from and who it’s for.

After completing this course, you will be able to:

• define “accountability to affected people” and identify steps that can be taken to improve accountability to affected people;
• explain “taking account”, “giving account” and “being held to account”;
• identify why it is important to be accountable to affected people; and
• explain what accountability to affected people means in practice, related to real-life actions across the programme cycle.

Select this course if:

• you are a humanitarian at any level;
• you do not work for a humanitarian organisation, but you wish to understand why humanitarian organisations act in certain ways; or
• you are looking for an overview of the Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability.

The CHS is integrated into the Sphere Handbook. The intellectual property is jointly held by Sphere, Groupe URD and the CHS Alliance. This course was created by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy in partnership with the copyright owners.