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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Helen Ouyang, BA, MPH, MD Cand, School of Public Health (International Health), Harvard University, 780 Boylston St, Apt 8D, Boston, MA 02199, 410-336-1772, helen@jhmi.edu

The Sphere Project was launched in 1997 by NGOs in response to the increasing need for a system of accountability and monitoring of humanitarian assistance, following the genocide in Rwanda. Sphere is unique not only because it is the first attempt made by humanitarian agencies to monitor their own activities in conflict or disaster but that it also propelled the language of human rights into the dialogue of humanitarian crises. While Sphere references human rights throughout its guidelines, the question still remains whether it is only rhetoric or if it actually brings a rights-based approach to humanitarian assistance. Currently, Sphere is still being recognized and used by the humanitarian community as only a handbook of technical standards. In addition, if humanitarian assistance is to be married to human rights, then it must be further examined whether such an approach is necessary or even suitable in a complex humanitarian space. Finally, the role of human rights in actual practice needs to be measured against quantifiable indicators. Once the association between rights and standards is made more explicit, and this disseminated to the humanitarian community, then the evolution of Sphere from a handbook to an articulation, an advocacy, and a practice founded in human rights should quickly follow.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. Evaluate the current rights-based approach of Sphere to humanitarian assistance.
• 2. Identify field indicators to measure the role of human rights in actual practice.
• 3. Develop future recommendations for strengthening the link between human rights and humanitarian assistance.

Keywords: Human Rights, International Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

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