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Humanitarian standards, quality and accountability
Providing assistance is not enough: it has to be done well. The humanitarian system has developed standards to ensure quality, safe and dignified action, such as the Sphere Project or the Core Humanitarian Standard. At the same time, it has made commitments it has not fully kept: returning power to affected communities, funding and recognising local actors, and being accountable to those who receive assistance.
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What standards ensure the quality of humanitarian action?
The quality of humanitarian action today rests on internationally agreed standards that define what a dignified, safe and effective response looks like. The two most important are arguably the Sphere Project and the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS). Alongside an ethical, legal and practical foundation for humanitarian action, Sphere sets out a series of minimum technical standards. The CHS defines commitments to improve quality and accountability to communities.
- The Sphere Handbook, which emerged in 1998 in the wake of the 1994 Rwanda crisis, is the global reference framework for quality and accountability in humanitarian action, adopted by virtually all humanitarian organisations.
- The first section of the Sphere Handbook brings together the Humanitarian Charter, the protection principles and the Core Humanitarian Standard, connecting the technical standards with the ethical and legal foundations of humanitarian action.
- The second section of the Sphere Handbook includes minimum technical standards for water, sanitation and hygiene, food security and nutrition, shelter and settlement, and health.
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- The Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) sets out nine quality and accountability commitments that people and communities affected by crisis can expect from any humanitarian organisation.
- Compliance can be verified through self-assessment, independent verification or certification, a seal that a growing number of donors recognise or require for access to their funding.
- Despite progress, the real incentive for audits still comes from donors rather than communities: upward accountability continues to outweigh accountability to affected people.
16-minute read + 2 preguntas de reflexión asistida por IA
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How does the humanitarian system intend to return power to communities and local actors?
The humanitarian system has spent decades acknowledging that affected communities and local actors should have more power, more voice and more resources. Reform after reform has produced normative frameworks, commitments and tools to make this possible. However, the real power dynamics have barely changed when it comes to community participation, accountability and the empowerment of local actors.
- Local actors can respond quickly, cost-effectively and with community legitimacy, but receive less than 3% of direct humanitarian funding and occupy few leadership and decision-making positions.
- In 2016, the humanitarian system committed to channelling 25% of funding to local actors as directly as possible, a target that has not been met and has since been progressively watered down.
- Without overhead funding, local and national humanitarian organisations cannot develop management structures, retain experienced staff or compete on equal terms.
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- Successive humanitarian reforms have promised a "participation revolution" that has never materialised.
- Humanitarian organisations continue to control what information is collected, how it is analysed and what decisions are made with it, with little change in the power dynamics between them and the communities they serve.
- Genuine community participation requires more time and flexible funding than current project cycles allow. As a result, a growing number of voices are calling for longer cycles and increased multi-year funding as a prerequisite.
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