After seven years of consultations with NGOs, the global Sphere Project has come up with a comprehensive set of guidelines to help relief agencies be more accountable and professional. Yet not everyone agrees that Sphere is a good thing.
Who are the critics, then?
They&${esc.hash}39;re mostly French. The most vocal opponent is Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), often the maverick of the aid world.
Others include Action contre la Faim (Action against Hunger), Aide Medicale Internationale, Bioforce, Handicap International, Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World), Premiere Urgence and Solidarites.
What&${esc.hash}39;s their beef?
The list is quite long. They say Sphere focuses too much on the technical achievements of aid and disregards the other effects that a humanitarian presence can have, such as bearing witness.
They complain that aspects that are harder to quantify are left out, such as mental health, education and the protection of civilians. For example, they say it&${esc.hash}39;s no use providing wells if women are raped on their way to collect water.
They argue that it&${esc.hash}39;s impossible to come up with universal standards, since every disaster is different, and that aid needs to be specific to each situation. For example, they point out that NGOs provided nappies and sanitary products during wars in the Balkans, which would be unheard-of luxuries in an African context.
They say the Humanitarian Charter has no legal basis, since it invents the right to assistance, which is not backed up in international law. They argue that mixing human rights and international law with the provision of services risks weakening the laws.
They are apprehensive that if standards are too standardised, then donors could refuse to provide funding to anyone taking an independent stance.
And they fear that Sphere could be used to legitimise aid from inappropriate bodies. For example, the U.S. army in Afghanistan could say - and has, in fact - that NGOs should not criticise its involvement in aid when it is meeting Sphere standards.
They are also repelled by the language it borrows from corporate management - words like "stakeholders" and "clients". These are terms that have been adopted to get away from words like "beneficiaries", which many people argue are condescending.
Have the critics come up with any alternatives?
A group called Groupe Urgence, Rehabilitation, et Developpement (Emergency, Rehabilitation and Development Group) launched its own pilot scheme in June 2004.
It&${esc.hash}39;s called COMPAS Qualite, which means Quality COMPASS. The French acronym stands for criteria and tools for managing humanitarian assistance. It&${esc.hash}39;s a system based on the principles of quality assurance.
So is this just an Anglo-French argument?
Everyone is keen to stress that it&${esc.hash}39;s not, although the debate is clearly influenced by cultural differences.
Proponents of Sphere have actually taken a lot of notice of French-led criticisms. Many of them have been addressed in revised issues, and ongoing debate.
Sphere&${esc.hash}39;s supporters say the two approaches are not incompatible - the COMPASS scheme could be used to assess the requirements of a specific context, and Sphere then used to judge minimum standards of aid.
What do people in the rest of the world think?
Another accusation from the French camp is that Sphere is a Northern initiative. Sphere acknowledges this, and has made an attempt to get people around the world involved in its revision process. The handbook has been translated into more than 20 languages.
One success story is Sphere India, which is highly unusual in coordinating disaster planning between international NGOs, local NGOs, representatives of government, U.N. organisations and the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement.
Where else are there initiatives like this?
In the Central American countries of Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, and in Democratic Republic of Congo.
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