The Sphere Handbook: the minimum standards of humanitarian action
- Page updated onJuly 17, 2026
Minimum humanitarian standards define essential levels of quality for effective, safe and dignified humanitarian action for people affected by crises. Its best-known reference is the Sphere Handbook, which establishes both the ethical and legal foundations of humanitarianism and the minimum technical standards for sectors such as water and sanitation, nutrition, shelter and health. Alongside it, other frameworks and sector-specific guidelines expand and update these standards.
Table of contents:
What is the Sphere Handbook and what does it contain?
The Sphere Handbook is an essential instrument for the practice of quality humanitarian action. Since its initial publication in 1998, it has been updated on several occasions up to its current 2018 edition. Today the Sphere Handbook is a reference framework for all humanitarian organisations regarding the ethical basis of humanitarianism, accountability and the minimum technical standards for operations. (Sphere Association, 2018). It is divided into two main blocks.
The first major block offers an ethical, legal and practical basis for humanitarian action, in four chapters:
- The first chapter explains what Sphere is and how the Handbook should be used. It explains that its minimum standards or norms should always be used taking into account the context of intervention, the diversity of individuals and peoples, operational and logistical realities, and the starting point in key indicators. It is not a recipe but a reference and its use does not replace a critical and continuous analysis of the situation.
- The second chapter is the Humanitarian Charter, based on the 1994 Code of Conduct, and it lays the ethical and legal foundations for the rest of the chapters. It affirms the principle of humanity and the humanitarian imperative, as well as the recognised rights of all people affected by a disaster or armed conflict, and the commitment that endorsing humanitarian organisations make to them.
- The third chapter explains the protection principles by which any humanitarian actor must be guided: (1) prevent or mitigate harm, (2) ensure people's impartial access to the humanitarian assistance they need, (3) help people recover from the effects of violence, coercion, and abuse, and (4) help people claim their rights. These principles underpin the rights recognized in the Humanitarian Charter and are operationalized through the principles of protection mainstreaming.
- Since the 2018 update of the Handbook, the fourth chapter includes the Core Humanitarian Standard on quality and accountability, and its nine commitments.
The second main block, in turn, includes the minimum technical standards for four humanitarian sectors: water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), food security and nutrition, shelter and settlement, and health.
The minimum humanitarian standards of the Sphere Handbook
The second block of the Sphere Handbook sets out the minimum standards and the levels of attainment that should be reached in any crisis. These standards represent good practice and are grounded in broad consensus among highly experienced humanitarian actors and in the evidence available at the time they were written. The Sphere Handbook exists to encourage the widest possible use and ownership of these minimum standards, always understood as a voluntary code that requires well-contextualised application throughout the entire project cycle (Sphere Association, 2018).
For each sector and its specific technical areas, a series of standards is set out, followed by recommended key actions, key indicators with pre-established minimum thresholds, and additional technical guidance.
Minimum standards for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in humanitarian action
For water supply, excreta management, hygiene promotion, vector control, solid waste management, and WASH in healthcare settings and disease outbreaks, the Sphere Handbook sets out 14 minimum standards. These are grounded in everyone's right to water and sanitation and in the heightened risk of diseases linked to inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene faced by people affected by humanitarian crises (Sphere Association, 2018).
This chapter highlights key ideas such as the importance of always ensuring community participation and of working to address the main public health risks facing the population. It also sets out minimum standards for the quantities of essential hygiene items, materials for menstrual health and hygiene management, and water supply and quality, among others.
Minimum standards for food security and nutrition in humanitarian action
For assessments of food security and nutrition, the treatment of malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, infant and young child feeding, food security, food assistance and livelihoods, the Sphere Handbook sets out 14 minimum standards. These are grounded in the right of everyone to be free from hunger and to enjoy adequate food, and in the particular vulnerability of certain groups and individuals to undernutrition (Sphere Association, 2018).
This chapter provides guidance for analysing food insecurity in humanitarian crises and the nutritional status of those at greatest risk. It also sets out important globally accepted thresholds for access to acute malnutrition management programmes and services, for their outcomes in terms of the proportion of people who die, recover and default from treatment, and for the dietary diversity of families affected by humanitarian crises, among others.
Minimum standards for shelter and settlement in humanitarian action
For all matters relating to shelter and settlement, including siting and planning as well as essential household items, the Sphere Handbook sets out 7 minimum standards. These are grounded in the right to adequate housing and in the importance of creating a safe environment for life (Sphere Association, 2018).
This chapter sets out how shelter in humanitarian emergencies should protect families from disease, the weather and violence, while offering them dignity, privacy, proximity to their livelihoods and the opportunity to interact with their communities. It also details important thresholds relating to the square metres required per person, the acceptable proportion of covered living space and the minimum household and domestic items that families should have.
Minimum standards for health in humanitarian action
For everything related to health systems and essential healthcare in humanitarian settings, the Sphere Handbook sets out 18 minimum standards. These are grounded in the right of every person to receive appropriate healthcare in a timely manner and in the heightened risks to morbidity and mortality that exist in humanitarian crises (Sphere Association, 2018).
This chapter highlights the importance of assessing the severity of a humanitarian emergency using the crude mortality rate and the under-5 mortality rate against their reference thresholds. It also stresses the importance of humanitarian responses adapting their health approaches and modalities to the context, so that they do not weaken but rather support existing health systems.
Among the many indicators and minimum thresholds set out, notable ones include those relating to access to primary healthcare services, the required numbers of health workers, the availability of essential medicines, free access to priority healthcare, the notification and verification of epidemiological alerts, vaccination coverage, the appropriate treatment of diarrhoeal diseases, the availability of reproductive health services and emergency obstetric care, and case fatality rates for infections with epidemic potential, among many others.
Beyond the Sphere Handbook: other minimum humanitarian standards
Beyond the Sphere Handbook and the minimum humanitarian standards for the four sectors it covers, the Humanitarian Standards Partnership has published further documents and manuals. These include standards for the care of children and adolescents, the inclusion of older people and people with disabilities, and the management of camps for displaced people, among others (Humanitarian Standards Partnership, n.d.).
In addition, beyond the Humanitarian Standards Partnership and the Sphere Handbook, numerous other UN agencies, sectoral humanitarian clusters, academic institutions, donors and non-governmental organisations have developed sector-specific technical guides and manuals, increasingly grounded in evidence.
Although it is impossible to list all the sources of technical guidance for the different sectors, it is worth highlighting the work of UN agencies such as WHO, UNFPA and UNICEF and organizations focused on research, innovation and learning such as ALNAP and ELRHA, the work that numerous NGOs implementing humanitarian action such as Médecins Sans Frontières carry out in research, learning and evidence generation, or the commitment of academic sector initiatives such as the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies, the Health in Humanitarian Crises Centre of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, or the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health, among many others.
The global humanitarian clusters in each sector have many of the main technical and operational reference guides on their websites.
Origin, adoption and future of the Sphere Handbook
The Sphere Project emerged in 1997 at a turning point for the humanitarian system: the reform and transformation that followed the 1994 Rwanda humanitarian crisis. The initiative was initially driven by Peter Walker (IFRC) and Nicholas Stockton (Oxfam), and a large number of humanitarian organisations soon joined it.
At first, some organisations expressed a degree of wariness and concern, fearing that the existence of minimum standards for humanitarian response might reduce the responsibility of governments in humanitarian crises. Over time, however, Sphere has become established as a global humanitarian benchmark for improving the quality, accountability and coherence of humanitarian action.
In March 2026, a new cycle of revision and updating of the Sphere Handbook began. Open to the participation of experts and communities, this process aims to include a broad effort of analysis of evaluations, reports, lessons learned and research, in order to produce a new edition better grounded in the available scientific evidence by 2028 (Sphere, n.d.).
References
- Humanitarian Standards Partnership. (n.d.). Humanitarian Standards Partnership. Retrieved July 16, 2026, from https://hspstandards.org/
- Sphere. (n.d.). Handbook revision 2026–2028. Sphere Association. Retrieved July 16, 2026, from https://spherestandards.org/handbook-revision-2026-2028/
- Sphere Association. (2018). The Sphere handbook: Humanitarian charter and minimum standards in humanitarian response (4th ed.). https://handbook.spherestandards.org/en/sphere/#ch001
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How to cite this page
Abarca, B. (July 17, 2026). The Sphere Handbook: the minimum standards of humanitarian action. Salud Everywhere. https://saludeverywhere.com/en/humanitarian-aid-and-international-development/minimum-humanitarian-standards-and-the-sphere-project/