Many humanitarian concepts, such as community engagement, are diversely defined and divergently understood.

There is a demand among practitioners for guiding products such as glossaries and dictionaries that articulate clear and concise definitions. However, attempts to impose a singular understanding risk crowding out diverse perspectives: while a singular shared definition of a concept may, in theory, have coordination benefits, it is important to acknowledge that varied understandings are an integral feature of a diverse humanitarian ecosystem.

Humanitarian Encyclopedia

The Humanitarian Encyclopedia (HE) offers a solution to this dilemma by not imposing top-down definitions of key terms and concepts, but by fostering a collaborative online space where diverse definitions can be described and shared.

The Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies (GCHS) initiated the HE project in 2017, and development of the interactive online platform started in 2020 ahead of launch in March 2021. The GCHS partnered with the University of Granada to complete in-depth analyses of twenty-three concepts and summary analyses of a further sixty-one.

During 2023, the linguistic team posted a series of concept explainer videos, and completed work on the concept tracker dashboard app which draws live data from ReliefWeb.

A new consortium

By November 2022, SEEDS India and the Asian Disaster Risk Reduction Network (ADRRN) had been confirmed as key partners to help move the consortium forward – focusing on Asia before transporting a successful model to other regions.

Sphere was identified as another key consortium member during the second half of 2023, and formally joined in March 2024, having signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Geneva and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies acting through their joint centre, the GCHS.

Responsibility for the HE platform was passed from GCHS to Sphere in late 2023, resulting in a simplified architecture with reduced maintenance costs to ensure its long-term sustainability.

Next steps

Sphere now intends to integrate the HE platform with the Interactive Handbook which hosts the Sphere Handbook alongside the other sets of Humanitarian Standards Partnership (HSP) standards, in multiple languages.

Subject to identifying a financial sponsor, the HE consortium will grow the Encyclopedia as a go-to platform for diverse explanations and definitions of humanitarian terms and concepts, maintaining a focus on amplifying local voices.

Media enquiries: communications@spherestandards.org

Partnership enquiries: partnerships@spherestandards.org