Raising standards in emergency relief: how useful are Sphere minimum standards for humanitarian assistance?

Satisfaction with the humanitarian response to the 2010 Pakistan floods: a call for increased accountability to beneficiaries

“…Much work has been accomplished to set general response standards and frameworks for overall accountability—most visibly through the Sphere project, which represents an important step forward in improving the quality of assistance and accountability of humanitarian agencies by providing an agreed-upon set of standards for various sectors of humanitarian intervention. However, some common criticisms of the Sphere standards are that they lack flexibility, do not guarantee quality, and may not always reflect the on-the-ground realities and priorities 17 18. Improvements in setting standards and creating frameworks notwithstanding, there have been fewer successes in engaging the recipients of aid19 20 in quality assurance efforts.…”

A record of morbidity and medical request profiles in international humanitarian aid, taking the earthquake in Bam in Iran in 2003 as an example

“…Experience in the last few years are reflected here. Sphere emphasises that, besides all standards, respective indicators and guidelines must be adapted to the local political and humanitarian conditions, respectively (Griekspoor and Collins 2001).…”

Mental and social health in disasters: the Sphere standards and post‐tsunami psychosocial interventions in Asia

“…The handbook is designed for use in natural disasters, conflicts, slow-and rapidonset events, rural and urban environments, and complex political emergencies in all countries of the world (Sphere Project, 2011), and it represents, across disciplines, perhaps the most widely distributed, basic humanitarian aid text (Van Dyke and Waldman, 2004). Although widely used in practice, the relevance, appropriateness, and evidence base of the Sphere standards for social and mental health (Sphere Project, 2004) have been debated in a number of qualitative research studies (see, for example, Batniji, van Ommeren, and Saraceno, 2006;Morris et al, 2007) and the nature of the standards in general and their implications for practice have been assessed in several papers (see, for example, Griekspoor and Collins, 2001;Salama, Buzard, and Spiegel, 2001;Dufour et al, 2004;Tong, 2004). Furthermore, the standards originally were developed to guide a response during the acute emergency phase after a disaster and their relevance vis-à-vis long-term interventions or protracted emergencies has been questioned and remains unclear (McDougal and Beard, 2011).…”