The Sphere Project

A set of internatonal standards and guidelines for the aid industry. In many ways it's a shame that it had to be produced at all, as much of it is just common sense and common courtesy, but given the proliferation of NGOs and their rather dubious general behaviour it's probably a good thing that some of them got together to produce this. The standards themselves are OK. I don't find it very practical, though. The other day I was trying to remember the correct ratio of cereal-pulses-oil for relief food rations so I could work out a budget for a local NGO and I was sure it would be in this book - but I couldn't find it here. I had to look elsewhere.… (mais)

Cassie Knight, consultant for Catholic Relief Services and who has been involved in relief work for ten years, has chosen to discuss The Sphere Project’s Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response , on FiveBooks (http://five-books.com) as one of the top five on her subject - Aid Work, saying that:

“… This was launched after the Rwandan crisis and it’s based on human rights – specifically that everyone has the right to live in dignity. This is enshrined in international law but the handbook tries to define what dignity is. There is now a minimum standard for providing food relief, sanitation, shelter and so forth..…”.

The full interview is available here: http://thebrowser.com/books/interviews/cassie-knight… (mais)