Topic 4: Humanitarian ethics and socially responsible engagement
Increasing transparency, accountability, standards, and codes of conduct
As you will have understood from Reading 4.1, since the early 1990’s there have been a series of standards and codes of conduct which have been designed to both protect key stakeholders involved in humanitarian assistance, and also to contribute towards improvements in the professionalising of the humanitarian sector. The two most important sets of standards are the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGO’s involved in Disaster Relief (sometimes just called ‘The Code’), and the Sphere Project.