“Sphere standards are indispensable in humanitarian response” – Amadou Mansour Diouf

“I recommended the Sphere e-learning course to lots of colleagues because I am convinced that it could bring them many advantages in their work,” says Amadou Mansour Diouf. Photo © Richard Mané / The Sphere Project

A journalist by training and holder of a PhD in communications, Diouf began his career working in the news media. As a reporter in a news agency in Senegal, his home country, he used to cover the NGO world and got curious about it. Soon afterwards, he began working at Environment Development Action in the Third World (ENDA), an international NGO with headquarters in Dakar.

Diouf came into contact with humanitarian work when he moved on to work at the UN Child Agency (UNICEF). “This was an interesting phase during which I became familiar with advocacy for vulnerable groups, particularly children,” he says.

After UNICEF, Diouf joined the regional delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which from Dakar covers Senegal, the Gambia, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. As information officer, he was interested in the principles that govern humanitarian work. And he soon discovered the existence and importance of humanitarian standards.

He learned about  e-learning course through the Sphere electronic newsletter. Checking it out, “This is serious stuff. I’ll have to make time to undertake this course,” he told himself. “So one day, I started,” he recalls. “At the end of my working day, I’d stay in the office for two or three hours to work on the modules. Sometimes I’d leave the office at 20:00 or 21:00.”

Diouf found the Sphere standards to be “not merely interesting but indispensable” in humanitarian response. “I wonder how one can work in the humanitarian field without following them,” he says.

What did he find most interesting in the course? “All the modules were great. But perhaps it’s the philosophy that pervades the whole training – that puts affected populations at the centre – that’s most interesting,” Diouf says.

“You feel that there’s a constant and permanent effort to reach the affected person, a concern that affected populations themselves should participate in the response. When you arrive in a crisis situation, you come with solutions. But in the Sphere approach, the affected population itself participates in formulating a response. Affected people are neither excluded nor take second place. They are there right from the beginning when the response is being programmed. This approach captivated my interest because it really respects the affected person and takes their dignity seriously.”

This emphasis reflects on Diouf’s daily work. “In the ICRC, we’re involved in assistance to and protection of people affected by armed conflicts and other violent situations.”

In Southern Senegal, despite a cease-fire declared last year, the rebel Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) and the army continue to clash from time to time. The ICRC keeps dialogue channels open with both parties, aiming to raise their awareness of international humanitarian law, especially the need to protect civilians.

One focus of ICRC’s work is on supporting internally displaced people, sometimes in difficult-to-reach areas of the country, where among other things they lack access to water and sanitation as well as health services. The organisation also promotes the development of small economic projects.

When long-term displaced populations return to their homes, “everything is destroyed, there’s nothing left,” Diouf says. So the ICRC “helps them to rebuild homes, repair water outlets and replant market gardens.”

After completing the Sphere e-learning course last summer, Diouf became its advocate. “I sent the link to the e-learning course to lots of colleagues and encouraged them to do it because I was convinced that it could bring them many advantages in their work.”

The Sphere course was not the end of the road for Diouf. “It made me want to better understand the philosophy behind Sphere. I viewed the videos and followed several project tracks. I’m now wondering how to get in touch with the academic world to promote Sphere standards. I know that some very specific trainings designed to teach skills for use in humanitarian action exist today. That framework, which could allow the standards to be taught, and is already there.”

For Diouf, the move from working in the news media – “a job I chose, enjoyed and that gave me much satisfaction” – to the humanitarian sector offered multiple opportunities to satisfy his curiosity. “In the humanitarian field, you learn lots of new things, use new tools, discover new approaches,” he says.

The Sphere standards are among them.

[Amadou Mansour Diouf participated in the 28-29 October .]

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