Information Sheet

Second National Course on
The Sphere Project: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response

A three-day national course on disaster response was launched on June 21, 2001, at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa. The course is jointly organised by Disaster Mitigation Institute (DMI), Ahmedabad, and Oxfam (India) Trust.

The National Course addresses the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response. This includes the Sphere Project that covers minimum standards pertaining to water supply and sanitation, nutrition, food aid, shelter and site planning and health services.

The participating agencies included Oxfam (India) Trust, Bhubaneshwar; Save the Children Fund, Delhi; World Relief Commission, Washington DC; Administrative Staff College, Calcutta; United Nations International Children's Education Fund (UNICEF), Calcutta; Dasholi Gram Swaraj Sangh, Uttarakhand; Lutheran World Service, Calcutta; Christian Aid, Delhi; United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Bhubaneshwar; Red Cross and Red Crescent Society of Bangladesh, Dhaka; Indian Red Cross Society, Delhi; Caritas, Delhi; and Merlin, United Kingdom (UK).

The course was attended by participants from United Nation agencies, Red Cross Movement organisations, international relief agencies, members of the UK Disaster Emergency Committee, grass-root NGOs, government training institutions and faith based organisations, from eight Indian states.

Disaster managers and individuals with field experience-who are designing, implementing and evaluating some of the key humanitarian projects in Orissa, Gujarat, Kashmir, Assam, Uttarakhand, Calcutta and Rajasthan-also participated in the course.

"It is of great value to reach out to new partners and explore new reservoirs of knowledge," said Dr. M.R. Nayak, NIO, Goa, on inaugurating the course.

"Regional cooperation in improving relief performance is crucial," said Mr. Akram, Deputy Director General, Bangladesh Red Cross, a participant from Dhaka. For the first time an agency from the South Asian region has organised such a course.

The course initiated south-south cooperation by inviting Dr. Pamela Machakanja, a leading capacity builder on disaster studies at the Institute of Peace, Leadership and Governance, Africa University, Zimbabwe. Dr. Machakanja shared African experience including of relief performance during floods in Mozambique and ongoing conflict in Sierra Leone.

"Without setting standards, relief performance can not be improved and without improving the performance of relief, accelerating costs of relief can not be arrested," said Mr. Mihir R. Bhatt, Director, DMI.

So far, the Sphere Project has remained a western concern to many in India. "We are trying to Indianise and localise the minimum relief standards. We are aiming at doing so with direct and durable exchange of experience and expertise with not only local Indian government agencies but also African, South-East and Latin American organisations," said Savio Carvalho, Programme Manager, Oxfam (India) Trust.

A third course is planned in August to cover community based disaster risk management tools and another in December to address children in disaster response.

Follow up activities include similar courses in three regions of India; a national NGO-GO consultation on minimum standards in relief; state level pilot projects in mainstreaming Sphere in India; and institutionalising ongoing efforts-academic and autonomous-to localise Sphere in India .