Humanitarian groups are working in closer partnership to secure the right of conflict- or disaster-affected people to adequate food. Protection is interpreted beyond preventing physical threat or insecurity to include the protection of rights provided for by international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law.

The Sphere Project was launched in 1997 by humanitarian non-governmental organisations, including the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, to improve humanitarian accountability to those affected by disaster. The Sphere handbook (2000) was the first attempt to develop global Minimum Standards of disaster response linked with a Humanitarian Charter of principles. It covered five sectors – water and sanitation, health, shelter, nutrition and food aid – but was criticised for focusing primarily on assistance, with few references to protection.

A revised Sphere handbook was published in 2004. Key participants have written a paper on the process of revising the Sphere Minimum Standards to include the sector of food security. The process considered how humanitarian agencies as ‘duty-bearers’ (with certain responsibilities) can contribute to Humanitarian Charter principles that call for the right to life with dignity, non-discrimination, impartiality and participation.

The revised Sphere handbook:

• focuses on strategies that contribute to household food security and uphold dignity, for example, by avoiding socially demeaning or unacceptable activities
• highlights how the behaviour of and methods adopted by agency staff can help ensure the rights and dignity of affected people: questions about assets may be intrusive, distributing food through clan systems may exclude some groups, etc
• sets out ways to ensure food resources are shared according to need and marginalised groups are not discriminated against
• advises on how to ensure impartiality: programme planning must include analysis of the groups involved, and the mechanisms, issues and contexts of conflicts.

Sphere’s approach has helped narrow the gap between guaranteeing social and economic rights (eg the right to food) and meeting technical standards (eg nutritional standards) in relation to humanitarian response, but more work is needed. Further, the Sphere initiative is voluntary, so there is no legal or political obligation for humanitarian agencies to follow its principles. Humanitarian agencies should:

• argue that the right to food goes beyond freedom from hunger to include an adequacy standard (in terms of quality, quantity and cultural acceptability)
• consult more closely those affected by conflicts and disasters, whose right to food must be defended
• encourage governments to work progressively towards guaranteeing the right to food for their citizens
• explore what an approach based on protecting rights means in terms of the role of humanitarian agencies, given that the primary responsibility for guaranteeing human rights rests with individual states.

It is now important to evaluate how meaningful Sphere’s rights-based approach is to users of the hand­book, and how that affects responses to future humanitarian crises.

Source(s):
‘Linking rights and standards: the process of developing right-based minimum standards on food security, nutrition and food aid’ by Helen Young, Anna Taylor, Sally-Anne Way and Jennifer Leaning, Disasters 28 (2), pp142-159, 2004

id21 Research Highlight: 28 June 2005

Further Information:
Helen Young
16 Spencer Road
Twickenham
Middlesex TW2 5TH
UK

Contact the contributor: helen.young@tufts.edu

The Sphere Project
P.O. Box 372
17 chemin des Crêts
CH-1211 Geneva 19
Switzerland

Tel: 41 22 730 4501
Fax: 41 22 730 49 05
Contact the contributor: info@sphereproject.org

The Sphere Project, Switzerland

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'Food aid: how effective is it?'

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'Bridging development and humanitarian work in protracted crises'

'Guns but no bread: how arms exporters are failing developing countries'

'Agriculture, food systems and the Millennium Development Goals'

'Ending the handout mentality: putting participation into emergency responses'