So welcome, everybody. Thank you very much for joining us here today. There is 137 of you for now. I'm sure that number will increase again. It's I will just get started by sharing some very simple housekeeping rules. Of course, as you know, you should be keeping your microphones on mute when you are not speaking. But this is also aiming to be an interactive webinar.
So please do share questions in the chats if you have any. We'll monitor the charts. And we have a Q&A session later in the webinar where we'll be able to address all of your questions. And keep in mind at these webinar is being recorded. So we will be able to share the recording and the presentation on our website at the link that you see on the screen probably by tomorrow. Thank you very much again. And I now leave the floor to our executive director, Dr Balwant Singh, for a very quick welcome message.
Thank you very much, Barbara, and a very good morning. Good afternoon or good evening to all of you who've taken time to join us today. Welcome to the Sphere webinar, which explores the application of Sphere standards in urban settings. Even more relevant now with complex crises such as covid-19, which affect all types of settings. Some of you may know Sphere well, but some of you may be not so familiar with Sphere. The Sphere believes that people affected by crises must be at the center of decisions about humanitarian protection, assistance, recovery and resilience. They have the right to prompt effective and quality humanitarian assistance, which enables them to survive crises, rebuild their lives and recover their livelihoods with respect and dignity. This webinar is a first for Sphere to support the launch of an implementation guide.
We are likely to do this more often in future. We have gained considerable experience delivering webinars over the past six months and found that this enables us both to reach more Sphere users, but also add to our learning from a wider audience. Today, we are launching our most recent implementation guide, Sphere for Urban Settings, and we would like to explore one of the most difficult issues when it comes to working with global standards, that of applying standards meaningfully in a specific context and when talking about urban urban settings are definitely highly complex setting altogether. It's my pleasure now to introduce my colleague Aninia Nadig, who will facilitate this webinar Aninia join Sphere in 2008 and lead the policy and practice work and also coordinates the Humanitarian Standards Partnership over to you Aninia. Thank you Balwant. Many thanks and welcome everybody. I will do my best to lead you through this webinar today and I wanted to start by indeed briefly covering the objectives of this webinar, which are to share information on the Sphere Handbook and its application in urban contexts.
It is to draw attention to the new guide, as Balwant just mentioned. It is also to share some positive examples and best practices in the implementation of standards in urban settings, urban environments. And the last item is to defy the myths that Sphere standards are not really so much applicable in urban settings. We will have a number of people talking today, which I will introduce as we go along, and at the very beginning, I will like I would like to look at the polls that you just started to fill in.
And it's actually always interesting for us to see how who our audience is. So we're trying to gauge that a little bit. The first question that we posed to you was how often do you use Sphere standards during your work? It's nice to see that most of you do sometimes use them or even often, and the minority only responded never. I hope that we can we can interest you in Sphere sufficiently that you will pick up the handbook as well in the future. And the second question was, how often do you use the Sphere standards while working in an urban context there? The numbers are a bit higher. They're often a bit lower and the at the sometimes as well. So maybe it is the fact that.
The urban application of the standards is not as as frequent as working with them in other contexts, so that makes this this webinar quite relevant and. I would like to start by. Hang on this. We have another poll, do we have another poll? Yes, so the other poll we wanted to suggest before we really get into the into the meat of things is each kind of environment you work so that we also have a sense of a better sense, again, of who our audience is and how how many of you actually work in urban contexts and what kinds of urban contexts. Plus. So most of you work in the office, so do we, especially now the countryside is quite high planned settlements, spontaneous settlements are a bit lower.
Towns or cities, some of you do some 36 percent of. So, again, not many of you actually do work at this moment or a majority does not work in urban settings at this moment. That's good for us to know. Again, hoping that the, um, the this webinar will provide you some new insights. As Balwant said, Sphere does apply to all contexts because it is built on universal rights that apply everywhere. And I was quite happy to see that we got two comments at the outset of the webinar who said, well, why are we talking about demystifying this this myth? Why why do we even think that there's a myth that Sphere does not apply to urban settings? It does.
But there have been consistently voices that say, well, that the standards don't really work in urban settings. Again, urban is a very specific context with very specific knowledge required to work in it, as is the case with any other context as well. And I do not want to minimize the complexity of an urban context, so there is a challenge of how to assess actual needs. There's a challenge of of working maybe in an area based way that is less specifically focusing on people. There's the challenge of coordination with a different kind, with a larger number maybe of of stakeholders in a very complex, dense context. I don't want to take those challenges away, but they should be acknowledged. But they don't mean that Humanitarian standards don't apply. And so the other thing is. That sometimes people say, yeah, but there's indicators in the Sphere Handbook, you know, 50 litres per person per day, three and a half square metres of covered living space. They don't make sense or queuing time for for getting water. They don't make sense in an urban context.
And here, I just want to say that if we can go to the next slide. Many people, unfortunately, focus a lot on the indicators in the handbook and indicators are important, but they don't exist in isolation. What they do is they support the standards that are a qualitative outcome, statements based on rights and neither the standards nor the indicators even taken together are, you know, somewhere in in mindspace because the indicators to develop them, to apply them to to contextualize them, you need the next slide, which are OK, which are the foundation chapters of Sphere and Sphere as guidance notes.
And even those are not, you know, invented in thin air. Everything is based on context and knowledge of context. And so instead of looking at indicators and then thinking, well, what do we do with these indicators, we need to take a step back and understand that everything we do is based on context and then feeds the indicators which are contextualized, and they then allow the standards to be fulfilled. And so Sphere is not about 15 liters of water per person per day, and it's not about three and a half square meters of covid living space, which are some of the metrics in the indicators. But Sphere is about people having equitable and affordable access to sufficient quantity of safe water, for example, to meet their needs. Or it is about people having access to a safe and adequate living space that allows them to live a life with dignity.
And the other important part I need to mention is that all those standards, those technical standards are built on Sphere Foundation chapters, which are the Humanitarian Charter, the protection principles and the Core Humanitarian Standard. Which all put people and communities at the center and as one of our speakers, Schoeman said very aptly yesterday in the discussion, those are values that don't need extra funding, but that are really based on the mind set. So if standards are well developed, which I hope Sphere standards are, then those standards will be able to absorb to deal with the tensions between very different kinds of contexts and still provide useful guidance on what needs to be in place for people to survive and recover with dignity. With that.
I would like to move to the next. Step, which is I'm delighted to introduce the first round of speakers to you. They will present three examples of working with standards in urban contexts, and the first speaker will be cameleer them Gilette. He is the coordinator of community based programs for the Turkish Red Crescent, focusing on protection, livelihood's, psychosocial support and social inclusion activities. And before this position, he was working with the international operations of the Turkish Red Crescent in Gaza and Somalia. He also worked for UNHCR and several think tanks and is one of the Sphere focal point in Turkey, and as such, he also works on disaster risk reduction and community resilience. The second speaker will have is Zaineb Sandra, which she lives in Istanbul, also Turkey based, and she has been part of the Sphere community since 2009, mostly as an independent Sphere Trayner. Zainab applied Sphere standards in different countries and different contexts, including Turkey, Gaza, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and others.
She's currently a board member of the new Ringy Association in Istanbul, and this local NGO is actually a member of Sphere and Zainab is also Sphere focal point Sphere focal point in Turkey. The third speaker we have is shumann US Will Islam. He is the director of the Humanitarian Leadership Academy in Bangladesh, based in Dakar. He has been working in Diora and with disaster risk reduction and in the humanitarian sector for over 25 years. And this includes working with Oxfam Difford Save the Children Care Brucke and also home in Bangladesh. He contributed to the development of the standard in 2006 and played an important role in promoting and translating the Sphere standards into into four for Bangladesh and also establishing the Sphere community, Bangladesh, which is also quite important. Sphere focal point Sumant is a Sphere Trayner and has been for many years with this. I would like to hand over to. Camille, let's start with Camille and his discussion of applying Sphere standards in urban settings over to you. Camille, thank you very much.
Thank you, Aninia Uh. So good morning, everyone. Uh, so I will be briefly telling you how we use the Sphere standards in the urban setting interm within the context of covid-19 so that I will do my best to demystify the facts that are lying with the with this use of Sphere in the urban settings. So thatI mean, there are a couple of different occasions that we had a chance to use of Sphere. But before passing to get into the details, I will just briefly inform you on the context that that we are working. So Turkey is a country that is consisting of around 100 million people and there are five million refugees inside the country.
And as far as the statistics are saying, 70 percent of the Turkish population is living in the urban settlements. So that it is, uh, the context could be considered as quite urban urban space. Uh, and apart from that, it is prone to various disasters, including earthquake followed. And now very recently, we have that migration crisis so that it brings us a complex, a complex humanitarian crisis at the end of the day. And so. So let me just briefly tell you how we are trying to cope with Sphere through using the sorry, cope with covid-19, through using the Sphere standards. Can we just start presentation? Yes, so first thing that we are doing is the assessment, and in case you check the the the documents that the supplementary to the Sphere manual that is referring to the the minimum standards for applications to the urban settlements, uh, the assessment is the core core start the core elements that should be done at the beginning of the usage of Sphere.
So that's what we did, is we started a rumor tracking system and constantly we are trying to do that. We are we conducted an assessment and it is it is published. You can check it through that through that website. I also posted the link or you can contact me for the for further information so that it is called as knowledge, attitudes and knowledge, attitudes and assessments on covid-19.
And it was conducted through Turkish Red Crescent communication channels in which includes social media platforms, phone interviews. We have a very big call center and we conducted that that study with around four hundred people, four thousand people overall, and we collected qualitative and quantitative data. Then we just realized that there had been various rumors for I mean, about covid-19. And one of them was vinegar and garlic and onions, I mean, they were considering I mean, most of the people were considering at the beginning of the covid-19 that could be preserving us from covid-19. And no surprise for this, most of the governments, including World Health Organization, was claiming that there is no need to use mosque and mosque could be detrimental for the human health at the beginning of the covid-19. And it is also tragic that we can see the shifts.
We can see the trends of the covid-19, uh, that has been evaluated from from the time being. Then we we passed to our beneficiaries. I mean, we are providing support to more than two or three million people inside the country. That's the most of them are refugees, actually. And and through these these assessments, we were trying to understand what were the needs of covid. I mean, what what how the covid affected their daily life. One of them was the schooling. I mean, they were not able to go to schools. That was another thing because it was affecting the socioeconomic structure of their life and they were not able to reach out to medical services. And I mean, 22 percent of the of our beneficiaries were not able to reach to medical services that were applied in their households. Uh, so that I mean, we tried to understand how is our community and how they should be and how we we should be making some changes through our services. And then the third one was the relying on the communities.
And we were conducting the usually we are conducting these advisory board meetings and we are trying to understand what they are expecting from our services. Uh, for the response side, we are working on the protection mainstreaming and the response since due to the covid precautions, there are very few organizations that are working on the field level so that we are doing protection work. That means we are trying to support people to access to the basic services that the Turkish government is providing. And also we are providing cash support for, I mean, around one point eight million people inside the country. And there are also some complementary elements that were that were supporting our cash cash program, actually, like rental issues, socioeconomic SOP support. But it was also going through the cash mechanism auteur's as well. But in any case, Turkey is a country that has a strong and efficient banking system so that it could be maintained.
And you can see the more details in the complementary guidelines, uh, how the mechanism should be functioning at a minimum level. And livelihood support can be also considered as an element, because most of the people we're facing with unemployment and I mean in order to support both to the labour market and the employees, we were trying to support people to profile and link them to the market requirements so that this was a usual task that we were doing. But at the end of the day, we really needed to support these people that were standing out of the labour market. We can pass to the next presentation. Yeah, the the thing is what we saw is actually I mean, this is most probably you have that in your mind as well. And this is one of the things and we really need to go further details on the covid-19 effects, because, I mean, what we realized is digitalisation is not an option anymore. It is it is a service that that people should be accessing. And, uh, in the urban settlements, it is it is quite unfortunate that most of the people are still not able to access to the Internet or to online channels.
And education was one of the problems inside Turkey. But there are also problems in most of the countries because children were not able to access to educational services. So that at the end of the day, I guess we will really need to consider that whether we we should be taking into consideration that digitalisation might be a minimum standard or not. But this will be definitely bringing us to another value. Said this. This is the this is part of the Sustainable Development Goals. And and also it is quite important to understand communities, what they are needing and what they really want to wants to embrace while we are supporting people in the urban settings. But we are thinking is I mean, what I can say for for anyone that would say that Sphere is useless documents for the urban settings like Brussels in Geneva.
What I can say is that the understanding of urban has shifted with the covid-19 because we get all vulnerable with the covid. I mean, the people that are in front of their computers are mostly at their homes. And it is what I call is a small detention that is small. And within that within that small detention, people are stuck in these places and they are not able to interact so that we are all vulnerable and we really need to cope with that and understand that. But I really don't think that Sphere can be out of the question while we are providing humanitarian support to the communities. So these are all that I want to reflect. But if you have any questions, we will be discussing all the questions and answers, I guess. Thank you. Thank you very, very much, Camille. That was extremely interesting.
You raised the issue of assessments and you provided some suggestions of of doing assessments and involving the community is very interesting in a different way. And, um, and suggestions for new standards, for new ways, new ways of working for it. The Intersect, the reality of standards. Very, very important. And we we we take note of that. And I'm sure I mean, guidance always evolves, fortunately, to adapt to new challenges as we identify them and as we're faced by those challenges. I would like to hand over now to Zainab, who will also talk to us about situations in Turkey.
Very much looking forward to that. Over to you, Zainab. Thank you. Thank you, Aninia, and good morning. Good afternoon and good evening to all. I will share some reflections Sphere MSG in urban settings from different perspective, from different stakeholders perspective in Turkey. So thank you Wassila this and this light. It was a nice coincidence right before I got the invitation for joining the state dinner, I had already scheduled at 10th and 11th DEC for delivering an online Sphere EMS training to the stakeholders who were working mostly in Istanbul from the international organization to the national organizations and some community initiative members. So it was really participatory and program.
So this gave me a chance to get real time information from the participants about the Sphere. Additionally, I conducted a focus group discussion with different stakeholders, representatives, especially mostly I can see cume for months. And also I did this review in Sphere in Turkey. Luring all these data gathering and process, I focus on three points, people's awareness of the Sphere Handbook. People access to the Sphere Handbook people's views of the Sphere Handbook. So next slide, please. Twenty eight people I interviewed, all of them have been working in urban settings, almost all of them to worry degrees, had heard of the Sphere Handbook all have an access to the online version of the Sphere Handbook one to twenty eight people I interviewed said that.
Their organization has been using Sphere mess, even some of them had limited knowledge of it, but they said their organization is applying Sphere and they would like to get more. Can they involved deeply for the applying of Sphere with proper knowledge? So it's still in the Turkish rollergirls availability in Turkey, Sphere Handbook, two thousand two thousand four to 11 versions are available in Turkish. We will hit the twenty eighteen local school meals, the first quarter of the twenty two thousand twenty one, we will have it. As to this review, I felt that Sphere Handbook 2000 version is still being used. It was really a surprise for me, too. I can see, especially by Accademia, mostly by the departments of architecture and engineering.
I found that some academicians from these departments referenced the Sphere Handbook in their articles, also Sphere Handbook two thousand version is being used by municipality staff or consultant. These are big cities, municipalities, including Istanbul, Izmir, VA, the biggest of Turkey. So. The mostly the engineers and architects working in the urban planning urban planning units of municipalities also cited the Tooter 2011 version of Sphere Handbook in their report. Specifically, it will be addressing the specification of the assembly areas or evacuation areas in emergencies. Also, it was interesting. Additionally, Red Crescent nutrition guidelines in twenty seventeen I know reference to Sphere images. Some of the participants of the workshop participants also mentioned that their organization have been using this guideline for nutrition response. Next slide, please. There should be one slight, but still, I can say, listen, could you just check if there is one one more slide? No. No. OK, OK, I can't I can't take your foster home, OK? I can't continue with this. Actually, based on yeah, based on what I have told so far, I think you have gotten the idea there was no query that Sphere Sphere EMS would be more appropriate to be used in rural jump environment compared to the urban environment.
I mean, you saw a few tangible examples about the Sphere mess in urban settings, maybe Kangal previous one. Oh. You can go previous one, please. OK, food security and nutrition. Yes, thank you. First example is from the Food Security Administration, the page in to two hundred fifteen, actually. There is it, Sphere standards, a civil servant, stand livlihood standards and selling point to income and employment SOP standards. He actually says that Chew's type of payment in kind cheche voiture, food or combination based on a participatory analysis. And. My well, also, there was another another SOP standards is contin, you understand local capacity's, safety and protection benefits, immediate needs, equitable access, exit existing market system and affect people's preference. My participants actually join in my online workshop, one or two organization representatives for why you need this example involved choosing both types of payment regarding cash transfer. One example is that in terms of you think of mobile phones based on the effect of people's preference, that the organization is sending digital code through text message for the cash transfer, it totally aligns with the Sphere standards in urban setting guidelines.
If you look at the figure six, see in the lower right corner, orrible advantages part. It asked that if mobile ATMs, Internet and Point-of-sale networks are functioning, also, there is another question about the if there are security risks and so on. So in our example, the organization used the urban advantages. Based on the effect of people's preference for cash transfer, so it was really nice to see the alignment with the target group organization's approach and the Sphere in this application in the urban settings. So another example is from the city shelter unsettlement. Next slide, please. Thank you. Now we are on the right track. Thank you, Wassila. And standard six, I would like to give you an example from the Standard six security of tenure, the affected population has security of tenure in its shelter and settlement options in terms of the key action for.
Employment, shelter and settlement programs to support security of tenure and it continue. And ensure that documentation such as in your agreement is properly prepared, prepared reflects the rights of all parties. Again, one of the organization representative exactly described four point to as saying that. Legal assistance is being provided to the affected people for ensuring the rental agreements properly prepared and protects the tenants rights against the landlord or rental agencies. I think I think I can I can provide more examples, but I think you got the idea, the the legend about the minimum standards mostly suitable for the rural area or council.
I think it is not they at in Turkey and the organization is working in here. So I can I can I can stop now. And if there is a question, I will be happy for you. Thank you, Aninia. Thank you, Zain. Thank you very much. Very interesting. A different approach to the same issue and a very interesting remark about which version of the handbook people use, because as we will see later with our next couple of speakers, the Sphere handbook, the latest version, 2013, actually has made quite a significant effort to include urban guidance as well. And so it is important to work with the 2018 with the most recent handbook and not with the previous version, because this version is stronger in all sorts of for all sorts of various elements of urban response and security of tenure is a very important element. You mentioned it became a standard because there are so many new ways of of welcoming refugees and IDPs into urban settings.
Thank you very much, Zainab. And I'm handing over now to our last speaker. We move from Turkey to Bangladesh, and Schoeman will also take us a little bit out of the humanitarian setting into into urban response in a broader sense. Over to you, Shumann. Welcome. Yeah, thank you very much, Mignonette, can you hear me? We can, yeah. OK, thank you. Once again, giving this opportunity to be talking about the Sphere standards, as you have been saying that I have been involved actually with this and this Sphere thing seems in its beginning from the very first version of this standard that. And so, as you said that I will be talking around this Arbon disaster response instead, kind of the Arbon humanitarian response. Well, we define this this disaster emergency response that's coming from the disaster, from natural and man made disasters and humanitarian crisis is coming from these complex emergencies of refugees.
So that's basically a kind of a working definition based on what I'll be elaborating my discussion. So examples I'm going to tell here. Well, it's not a very big disaster, even in the capital of Bangladesh. Dhaka is is a is a kind of the frequent emergency response or disaster response we do is a slum fire responses often in big slums, fire break out and hundreds of families sometimes lost their livelihoods and shelters. And organizations need to do this once around those those disasters. Well, it's a very difficult and a situation where people need response. And then I'll be very specific on talking about how Sphere standards been been been.
Ben Respon of Sphere standards been used on this emergency response in Bangladesh as disaster emergency response in Bangladesh. So as you started by saying that disaster will often when we talk about Sphere standards, people straightfoward jumped on to the sectoral responses, for example, food and shelter and other things where they can use misery to a macerated that's kind of the technical expertise or kind of a budget and everything. But the foundation and the principles of Sphere standards, as you say, are those the Humanitarian standards Core Humanitarian Standard, a Humanitarian Charter, Humanitarian Charter, Core Humanitarian Standard and the protection principles. What is the Core Humanitarian Standard is not only the foundation and principle, but also the standard for for emergency response where we don't need and need budgets. It's only the mindset and the and the skills and the commitment and attitude of. When I'm talking the examples of a slum fire response in Dhaka City, first of it, it's calm is a need assessment. Well, and and and we need assessments in slum for responses in Bangladesh, in Bangladesh, in Dhaka. City is very much it's going along with the Sphere standards, for example, is a joint effort is coordinated and and it is a response to people's dignity and the need and based on the right based approach and those things that I've been talking about, the Core Humanitarian Standard and the protection principles and and and it definitely involved the communities, including the local government, representatives of around the slum areas talking about the protection principle.
It is the ease as long as I know organizations involved in the response are on the core of their designing, their sponsor are looking at this child protection, do no harm, gender equalities and all those things. And that that's very much kind of the integrated into their protection, planning and protection designing and and also the beneficiary selection criteria that is very critical in humanity.
And the sponsors were being very much impartial and independent and based on the deed, actually prioritising the people, the most vulnerable people to be responded and to be supportive. So those are the protection principles, very much integrated in the in the slum responses. And then if I come to kind of a sectoral response, for example, in most cases, those who manage investments in slum fires happened is distribution of non-food items. And again, it's based on the need assessment involved with the community people. Those are being coordinated among the organization and among the governments so that people are not getting duplicated of the efforts. And resources are used on the on the need and relief of the people. And and above all, these these Sphere standards, that's very much to talk about the distribution standards for our people or the considering the disabilities of the people or delivering at their doorstep for for for example, in case of covid response, delivering their support at their doorsteps.
And so those are the the examples very specific I can spell out from Bangladesh in response. That's the kind of disaster emergency response is in Dhaka. And as I said, this needs to be very much clear among the people that a standard Sphere standard is not only the sector standards, it's not only the KAIJI or voucher or the or the numbers. It's about the Humanitarian standards. Sphere standards is about the protection principles.
And that was actually a time and again to everyone. When you have a chance to talk about that, just concentrate on those things that doesn't need the budget but can get a huge impact on the vulnerable people's lives when we do humanitarian disaster since the activities. Thank you very much for giving me this scope once again. Thank you, Shumann. That was an awesome way of ending this first part of the webinar, very strong advocacy for using Sphere the Sphere Handbook in a more comprehensive, more holistic way and not just focusing on the technical standards. It's a really, really, really important element of working with the Sphere standards in a in a constructive in a positive way. So I think those three that the three speakers we just heard had very complementary approaches to presenting Sphere in urban responses in very different kinds of responses. We're now moving to the next part of our webinar, and it is my pleasure to have the two authors of the second urban guide that we're just launching now with us, Professor David Sanderson and Dr.
Pamela Sitkoff. Um, before I hand over to them to give a bit of a of a reflection on what we've heard so far from their point of view, both in terms of what the new guide covers, but also in terms of what's now in the Sphere Handbook around urban guidance. I would like to just briefly look at those two guides that we're actually now presenting to the to the Sphere community. And you will also find them in the chat, the links to those two guides and you see them here on the slide soon, those two guides, the first one was written based on the previous Sphere Handbook, and it very much focuses on contextualising Sphere standards.
It focuses on the people, centered on the protection and Core Humanitarian Standard aspects of urban work. So very much those foundation chapters. And it has a very interesting checklist at the end for considering standards in humor in urban contexts. What are the questions you should ask yourself in order to contextualize standards for urban contexts? The second guide, which we're launching today, was written, as I said, by David and Pam, and it has as a basis a Sphere Handbook that is more solidly referencing urban contexts. And that's why it can focus on different elements and is complementary to the first guide. It focuses a lot on tools and approaches that you can pick up. It has a very extensive last section, a reference section with lots of tools. It focuses on cash and markets, which we heard is important on applying the standards in the technical chapters in WASH shelter, health, nutrition, food security.
How do we work in those for those chapters in urban settings? And it has, as I said, the broad anex with lots of tools suggested. Coming back to the two authors. Pamela sitcom, she is an urban resilience technical specialist with over 15 years experience in disaster development and conflict settings across 20 countries very experienced. She worked with agencies such as UN Habitat, World Food Program, IFC and various non-government organizations, including World Vision and Habitat for Humanity. And she holds a Ph.D. in Urban Disaster Resilience in 2018. She led the integration of urban contexts into the Sphere Handbook during the handbook revision, and she currently works as a senior project officer for Resilience in New South Wales, which is a state government disaster management agency in Australia. And I think right now we saw in the news you are indeed dealing with some floods in your area. Professor David Sanderson has 28 years of experience working across the world in development and emergencies. He worked for eight years for Care International UK. As head of policy and then regional manager for Southern and West Africa, he was also director of Sendup Center at Oxford University, which focuses on development and emergencies.
And for one year, he was full time visiting professor at Harvard University since 2006. David is the inaugural Judith Nelson, chair at the University of New South Wales. That's a long title in Sydney, and he is a member of several NGO boards and committees and is the author of the 2019 Good Practice Review by ODI and Al Knapp on Urban Humanitarian Response. May I hand the microphone over to you to starting with David with the question, how do you see that what we've heard so far reflected in the 2020 in the second part of the and guidance that we published today? Thank you. Firstly, thank you very much to Aninia for putting this on. And thank you Balwant for a great introduction. And it's it was a huge privilege and pleasure to be part of this Sphere Pozza Urban Guide. So thank you very much that we had I speak for myself, not for Bamblett, but the opportunity to be to be working on that.
I think we heard from our first three speakers a great practice, practical, detailed experience. So rather than to repeat that, what I would like to suggest is sort of flying a little bit higher. So less of the granular detail with some of the the overview, because the closest thing is that to read it is to look at at your leisure. And also thank you, everybody, for joining and some friends on this this call as well. It was nice to see old friends, so thanks Sphere for this. I think what is clear and even saying this gets riddled with controversy, but I would like to say what's clear is that no one approach presents different challenges and opportunities compared to operations in non urban settings such as camps and also in rural areas. But that's not the only challenge facing right now humanitarian responses since the end of 2020.
It would be, I think, rather remiss of meeting like this if we didn't think about what's been happening with covid. I think most people on this call may have seen options. Global Humanitarian Charter review for twenty one released on the 1st of December and Motlow had of go right to the front of the report, warns 2021 could be the year of the grand reversal, the unraveling of 40 years of progress. And that's that's from someone who really knows what he's talking about. covid-19 has triggered the deepest global recession since the 1930s.
So to think that donor nations are going to be continuing funding things is going to be rather hopeful. Obviously, we have. We will. But certainly where I'm from the UK, the same national interest for waiting and funding going down for the first time since the 1990s. Extreme poverty will increase, life expectancy will fall, and we know the length of that to chronic vulnerability leading to worsened a disastrous climate change the last ten years, the hottest on record and forecast for more of the same. Stronger windstorms increase, flooding will follow. And at the same time, by this time next year, if predictions are correct, there will be some 70 million new people living in cities most this year around the world as actually people being born. It's not actually migration. I'm not saying there several mired in gloom and think it's the end of things because that's not in the history of humanity. It's not a council of despair. But what I'm arguing and observing, not even arguing, is that we need to be more innovative and entrepreneurial.
How are we going to respond to Greece needs with probably less funds? And that's a whole bunch of things, deciding what we're not going to do, what we're not going to be engaged in all these different things. And so with that sort of two minute caveats, because this has been an extraordinary I mean, we never see the likes of 20/20 again, I think is a safe thing to say. I'd like to underscore some of the things that are in this guy. That's part two, which relates to that idea of being more innovative and more entrepreneurial, obviously, with this urban LEGS that we're talking about tonight.
I don't think I've just got four or five sort of broad brush statements because the detail is in the report, there's no need to repeat that. The key overall approach is to work with the city. And that might seem a bit obvious, but actually to work with the city, that means use what it has to offer to be innovative and creative, to prioritise local skills, local abilities, local resources, not bringing things in when you can buy locally, when you can sit nearby, assuming the city has stuff rather than assuming it doesn't. Again, a bit of an obvious thing, but I think we still fall into the thing of delivering goods and services. Maybe that's the case that sometimes very often not. Actually, markets come very quickly after crises and even during, of course, I think an example would be post disaster sheltering options that go beyond temporary shelters, which themselves have an element of discussion about their usefulness.
Rentals, upgrades, stay with host families, repurposing buildings or all options that cities offering agencies and myriad agencies do. The Dr Balwant Singh you and Habitat. Others are, of course, already doing. Not to suggest that not we can go vertically in the city in a way that we can't go in other crisis responses. And we can talk space, not just the assumption of a standard standalone single shelter, which is not an urban form. Another is the use of Kashmir, I heard a bit about cash for supporting stimulating markets and improving people's agency. Of course, the people get to decide how they use it. Now, as we all know, cash is imperfect, but it's no less worse than other sectors and an awful lot better than many others for transaction costs. And in the city, it's uncertain, no brainer to use cash in a city recognizing its limitations. But actually, it's it's really powerful and the evidence increases on that. But I think another one drawing from developmental highrises, heritages, and it is great to have Schoeman give that Dukkha context if ever there was a place of challenge and wonderful opportunity.
It is a city such as a key part is to support and not to provide humanitarian aid right now is based on the provision of goods and services. And of course, that makes sense is not an argument against that, because societies often do that in a crisis, but in urban areas it's different. Maybe it's the needs in an urban area may be overwhelming. It's multifaceted, not that obvious and more complicated than it seems to use.
The proverbial iceberg is the stuff you don't see, which is what really matters, the social those economic and political things as governance structures, many of which are hidden, many of which are open, all these different layers, games, non-state militias, all of the others that are that part of the urban story very, very often. One example of many would be health care, where the provision of health support needs to be aware of and support systems and practices that already exist. That doesn't mean you've got to build the hospitals or fix them or do stuff like that. But it does mean having an awareness of the different systems in the connectedness with just that. Seemingly on one level, seemingly simple health care support actually means in a city because these are all different kinds of levels. And knowing at least about that is a good point about where we're going to go.
Supporting means working with who's there to get to where they need to be. And as the saying goes to disaster is what it's all about in a globalized world, of course, but is first and foremost, those in that city is home as it is. And the role of aid is to support that. It means supporting authorities, local actors in their decision making processes. And as we know, local authorities almost all around the world are overwhelmed and under-resourced and imperfect. But our job needs to be support as far as possible. What can be done that another is meaningful engagement in complexity. But this is my last point. Meaningful engagement in complexity. Cities are really complicated, and that's not an argument. The rural is not. I'm not suggesting that.
But cities are very complicated and an issue there is ensuring the best investments are made, especially when we're going to face the next few years of very painful times. You know, the coffee crisis is many dozens of times worse than the ground global financial crash that what happened as a result of that. So we're hitting a time right now, really different stuff with more needs. And I think we need to be worried about that area based approaches within the European Party and Airbus, maybe an example of engaging complexity, often led by the global shelter cluster, but of course, not owned by them. It's multi sectoral, it's bottom up, it's post crisis recovery, very consultative, participatory cutting across. And that's really difficult. Just look at Red Cross's experiences, that candid experiences and how they respect that meaning. It was real, meaning was really hard. And some research that led up to this Sphere guideline.
One lesson very, very memorably said to us, if there was an easy way to do this, we'd be doing it. But if you're metric is around effective recovery as opposed to spending budgets fast and actually it's about this, but that's really hard, really complicated. But actually, that's that's the urban story is difficult and complicated. And the great news is there are great tools that are developing, been developed. There's a lot of expertise. You know, World War Two is pretty bad on cities, so it's not like it's a new phenomenon. But in the last 10, 15 years in particular, a lot's been done, not least the work of Sphere for part one and now part two. In terms of crafting, what can we say meaningfully and tying it to something as such, such a wealth and depth of experiences as the Sphere standards and saying urbanism and how do we talk about that? So I'll stop there.
And thanks very much. Thank you, David. Thank you very much. Yes, it's a it's an enormously complex setting. There will be more standards eventually developed around urban settings, I'm sure, and our tour guides help already go in that direction. And catch captures some of the knowledge and learning that there is. I would like to hand over now to Pam, because you, Pam, you have had a very unique experience in actually integrating urban gardens into the current Sphere Handbook. And I would like you to just very briefly touch upon the key elements that are now in the handbook and how that makes the standards more easily contextualized, both in urban settings.
Over to you. Pam, thank you. Oh, thanks, Aninia. As Aninia said in the intro, I work for the New South Wales state government in Australia. So we've been doing a lot of bushfire recovery and response over the past year in smaller urban centres. And I'd like to speak tonight specifically to the people in the poll who indicated that they have never worked in urban environments or they haven't used Sphere in urban environments.
And I'd like to encourage you to start with the introduction chapter of the Sphere Sphere Handbook, who's a really short, sharp paragraph about what is different about urban. And it highlights the fact that we face higher levels of density, density of people, density of infrastructure, density of laws, density of homes, a greater diversity, perhaps diversity in politics, in ethnicity, in culture and religion and a dynamism.
Inner cities are on the move, people are on the move, and so is power. Power is always shifting. So that first introduction really highlights some of those things. It points to what Carmel was saying and what David mentioned around cash. You know, we're paying cash for food, we're paying cash for rent. We're paying cash to access health care and the role of local actors. I reflect that in the small towns, one of the apple picking towns here in Australia, New South Wales, there were a number of immigrant workers and they were picking the fruit and the vegetables. And when the fires hit, they didn't know what to do or where to go. And the state government was helping respond.
But we actually didn't know that those people were there. So it was the local actors. And they've got specialized skills. They are architects, they're planners, they're urban designers, they're engineers. And they're really important. Part of the humanitarian response and the bit about the integrated programming that David touched on earlier is also mentioned in the introduction. You know, it's about choosing an area and then responding with all sectors and not just taking a sector based approach anymore. So you might have heard words like neighbourhood approach or settlements based approach or indeed neighbourhood based approach to do if I said that one first. So really, it's around what local communities are demanding rather than what humanitarian actors are able to provide. So check out the entire intro chapter following that. There are four chapters that focus on sectors specifically. So you have the WASH chapter, water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion.
Food security is another chapter in nutrition, the third chapter on shelter and settlements, and a fourth on health. So if you work specifically in one of those sectors and you want to know what is different about an urban context, what are the key things that I should know about? Before I start, have a look at the introduction. It's very, very short and sharp. And let me give you an example with WASH. Let me just say that in the introduction, the chapter highlights community engagement can be challenging, especially when it comes to identifying at risk populations in dense, low income settlements. And the introduction chapter in the WASH section also talks about ownership and the importance of identifying is it public, is it private ownership of the infrastructure or is it somewhere in between in a combination? And it's really important to identify those things because it informs our response options and also the way in which we deliver our interventions.
Let me talk for a moment to wrap up about standard two point one in the water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion chapter. And that's really around access. And water quantity, most people will be familiar with, the minimum standard for water supply is 15 litres per person per day, and that's quite an established practice. Now, you'll find throughout the handbook and specifically in this chapter, a lot of got a lot of tips and guidance in the guidance notes on urban. So the guidance notes for standard two point one says, and I'll just quote it here, it says, In middle income, in a in an urban middle income context, 50 litres per person per day may be the minimum acceptable amount to maintain health and dignity. So that's quite a difference from 15. So I really encourage you as a practitioner to check out the guide guidance notes at the end of each at the end of each of the chapters. And please know that these are guidance notes and that it changes and it varies and it's up to the practitioner, up to the agency, up to the actor to make an informed choice based on assessments about what's the most appropriate standard.
So thank you very much for including me tonight. I've enjoyed being here and look forward to your questions. Thank you so much, Pam. Thank you for again making sure that we look up the Sphere guidance at the Sphere standards in a holistic way and the introduction chapters. I was there when they were written. They are so rich introduction to the handbook, but also to each of the of the chapters, as you mentioned. And that's where really the wealth of information to contextualize is present.
I want to know. Happy to move to the third part of our, um, of our webinar, which is a discussion involving the participants, everybody who has been patiently listening, listening to us up till now. And I want to start with the first question that we received. And it links very well to what Pam just mentioned about. About local actors, the importance of local actors and the question that the comment says, I would like to know sorry, the other one here, I was a disaster management with New York City government for five years. What I find Humanitarian Charter who have worked primarily in rural or camp settings, what I find they miss is that urban dwellers will not wait for your help. They self organize as individuals and in spontaneous groupings and management of spontaneous volunteers and unsolicited non-food items is essential. So you enter into a situation that is actually already buzzing with response. I find that a very interesting comment. I don't know who would. I would like to just suggest that whoever of the five speakers who would like to respond just takes the microphone spontaneously.
But Romain button there, sorry, you know, that was a huge issue here in Australia when urban areas burnt down. There was a lot of desire to help and warehouses were erected to store all these non-food items and the army was called in to manage some of it. And communities were overwhelmed. And they're they're beautiful. Little halls and community centres were filled full of food and items that were donated and second hand and not wanted. And the state government had to set up a sort of cluster just to manage all of the donated items. So I don't have an easy solution to that.
But but I think actually Aninia, this is a point that should be mentioned in the next revision of the Sphere Handbook, because in urban centres where access is easy, this is a very real and a very costly challenge. The Victorian fires that happened in Melbourne, they have been able to calculate in the millions of dollars how much government had to spend on clearing donated goods. Thank you, thank you. Um. I will if there's no no one else who wants to speak to this one, or you can speak to this one later as well, once you have once you're speaking, I have another quite long and complex comment here.
There are, says this listener, there are really three and tackled issues. The first one is the lack of an effective transition between dependency and independency in terms of livelihoods. We heard about livlihood several times in two days in today's presentations, so from dependency to independency, the support element, I guess that will be probably something that someone can talk to as well. The second issue is the existing markets in capacity to absorb the prepared and trained individuals, creating pressure and tension between different vulnerable groups, locals, migrants and refugees. Those are two elements, actually, that absorbing the trained individuals is probably what the previous question also responded. Also brought up is how do you bring in all those other specialists who come in and also want to support the response and the different vulnerable groups? The competition among different vulnerable groups is an important issue that may be Schoeman or come you could talk to. And the third element is the effect of urban flows between city town settings, open loops of circularity and materials and resources waste. That's maybe a question for David, if I may. So the first one was the lack of effective transition between dependency and dependency.
Schuman, you want to talk to this one? I better be talking about the creating pressure or tension between different political groups, because in in in Dhaka, I experienced that. I have been talking about this particular slum fire. Well, livelihood is not necessarily and that's false there because people lost their end of the shelter and that effort. But as the slum dwellers work around the city, so not necessarily they lost their livelihood, maybe paused for some days, and that's where actually food distribution happened there. So all those happened based on that. As I said, a need assessment on the ground involving the community. And if you allow me, just linking this with the third issue of creating pressure and tension between different vulnerable groups. Yes, there is always everyone affected by disaster of any emergency. Everyone wants support. And that's where actually Sphere standards came in. When we have limited resources for responding, is this the prioritizing, the who are the most vulnerable and the prioritization can be done by the community first, they know who in their community is the most vulnerable and need the support first.
So and that's where those Sphere standards in intellection, Sphere standards in prioritization involving community, these coming here. And when we involve community, particularly those local government on on on selecting the quote unquote the beneficiaries for for support, its help is help reducing the tension and and minimizing the tension. And people understand the reality on the ground. So that's why I always recommend, at least if we can ensure these standards in times of need assessment, in terms of involvement, communities, in terms of prioritizing the vulnerable groups and vulnerabilities. It is helpful on the ground and it is impactful at results. Thank you. Thank you, Shumann, and the other responses to the questions we just brought up. Yeah, I just can say that it is it is it is also something that we realized and we really need to understand that in the current context, it is very, very difficult for all of us to differentiate between the emergency and the long term support or the development, let's say, because I mean, most of the people are considering that Sphere standards are is a document that is supporting for the emergencies.
And I mean, in essence, yes, it is. It is true that in most of the context, we can use the Sphere standards in emergencies. But what I can say is when we are discussing about livelihood, it is part of the development and we are still using and we really need to still use the Sphere standards in that sense as well. And I mean, this is a transition from from, uh, from dependence to independence is a part that we understand, a process that is leading us, I mean, addressing us to the resilience work that we all really need to focus on.
And what we understand from Sphere is it is a guiding document and a supporting document for us to, uh, to use the entire sectoral approach with the core principles, at least, and in the urban settings. This is also something that we are using and we really need to use as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. This actually response to a certain extent to I have to another comment that says, well, we do know what we need to do. We would like to know how to do it.
And it it comes back to what our standards, standards tell you what should be done in order for people to recover with dignity. There is a little bit of a how to in the guidance notes, but essentially you need to appropriate those to your own context and that the two guides give some how to especially the second one specifically on the various on the various technical chapters. It goes into elements you need to consider. There is that afterwards it's up to each organization or individual or organization, ideally, to actually operationalize and integrate that guidance into your own guidance. There's another comment that says the principles of partnership should be included in Sphere. That is a very valid point. We take that. It may happen at some other point. Right now, it's not in there, not in the Sphere Handbook, but it's a very important issue, how to work in partnership. And there is another. Question. In urban settings, there are a lot of informal settlers, too, which make applying shelter and settlement provision a challenge and adhering to standards due to limited spaces.
That, to me, again, is a contextual challenge to which the indicators need to be adapted. I will leave it at that, but happy for one of the panelists to pick up that issue. There's another question. What is the best guidance about how to coordinate humanitarian operations and informal settlements, slums, upgrading activities? Maybe that one can go to Schoeman and and Davit because it's true that many slum situations are actually in themselves, humanitarian catastrophes and so should be responded to as well. And the Sphere standards should be able to help with that. And if I may, I'll just continue one last question. How soon? Will these urban standards be advocated to country policy standards when working in urban emergencies, adapting international standards and guidelines to local to national level is something that is crucial.
That's part of what the first guide actually develops, is talking about adapting international standards in national settings. And one last and then I'll stop the the author of the first guide, Ben Mount Field, says In urban settings, big, dense, highly monetized humanitarian actors have much less relative power than in rural areas. How can humanitarians, with their reduced voice effectively advocate for the adoption of Sphere standards a people centered, rights based approach with the local authorities during or before a crisis that lines up with the first one? It is how to give a voice to the Sphere approach and to a humanitarian approach in urban in urban settings. Um, maybe that one is for David. Yes, I want to jump in. I've been reading the thank you, thank you, thank you, Ben, for that. Couldn't agree more. I've just been reading some of the stuff that's been going on and also talk about informal settlements. Perhaps I could just comment on that one because it was the names Katherine, Katherine, the I'm sorry if I said that rather than what you're saying as well.
This is a real conundrum. Close to a billion people living in low income settlements as some many of which are informal and that may well grind on for the next two decades if you and habitats in the half rise. And they they're going to be fully right. It's a real conundrum, right? You've got a disaster crisis and a national government or city government might see that as a reason to get rid of people or a large NGO might not be given permission to work in those areas because those people are illegal. And so you get this catch 22 of illegal people who was probably among the most vulnerable. There are always more vulnerable, among the most vulnerable, not being allowed to be helped by those mandated it is to help.
And so all kinds of wriggle room goes around and things happen and Sphere people out. And a lot of people aren't, of course, as we know to get subsidies to is a small proportion of people's genuine needs. And any response to anything everybody gets helped by by authorities and agencies and then other people might get relocated. But that's the long term work that's being done, I suppose, in developments of and economic gains and all these complexes. But if there was ever a matter of complexity, it is informal settlements and disasters and how to respond and do those things.
Touching on Ben's comments, rather, please extend the LEGS externalizes have less power because are external actors. And so if the role is more support than provide and actually going along with those existing governing structures, which may range from being absolutely dreadful to absolutely wonderful and often so the ends of the not so good because there is a correlation of governance, corruption and disasters, which is very strong, in fact, that our role is to support that support as much as we can do this form. I'm saying nothing you don't already. I know that. But that's part of the complexity of the situation that we're facing. Thank you, David. I have two more comments, questions that I would like to mention and then hand over to each of you for a last round of responding to the comments we've heard and wrapping up this this question and answer session, which clearly has been a bit short, given the interest and the questions that came in.
One was no, not every urban setting is a humanitarian emergency. There are standards thresholds being developed or have been developed on when a slum situation can be considered a humanitarian emergency. I'm sure someone could speak more to that. The other question was, is there training for humanitarians to learn how to work in humanity in urban settings? That's a broad, important question.
Training for humanitarian work is always important. And this specific sector as well. Of course, in the specific context, there is some training out there. David will have more information on that also, I'm sure, and more training is certainly needed. So that's a very valid point. And the last point I want to mention is, is there a way to move from immediate help to a more future oriented way of of approaching urban urban settings, humanitarian response in urban settings? That is very important. That goes along with training, that goes along with preparedness and with having a vision since urban settings change so much, having a vision for the long term. So those are the last few comments I wanted to throw out there. And may I suggest that we wrap up in response to these comments and in general along the same lines as we started. So over to you, Camille, for a last round of of comments and response.
Thank you. Thank you, Aninia. So. So, I mean, it seems that there are various questions that in our minds and it's really been effective and fruitful webinar for me as well, because I had various notes from from your questions and queries and comments as well. So what we understand from from the urban settlements response is we are not actually facing with too many emergency cases, but how we are responding to the long term developments is not very different from how we are responding to emergencies in general. So this is why we think that Sphere is an essential guideline that that we can benefit for all sectors, I mean, not just for the record mentally and principles or the protection principles, let's say, but but also for the sector and areas that there are a lot of a lot of tools that we can benefit for the long term development activities as well.
So, I mean, it is obvious that we need to revisit how we are responding on the field level and also it is also important for all of us to understand the political change within the sector after after that covid. And most probably we will be facing with climate change so that I think there will be more changes. And we really need to understand that these are all normal things now. I mean, we will be facing these and we will try to embrace it with with the knowledge that we developed all together. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Camille. We are running over time. I'm just hoping that you will bear with us for another few minutes as I hand over for last remarks to say please. Thank you, Aninia, and thank you. It was really useful meeting for me, too, and it is really nice for getting different reflections from different contexts.
I would like to focus one point. Providing training or introductory information on Sphere minimum standards to be Wintringham workers, actually not only Humanitarian Charter, Sphere, Sphere minimum standards, humanitarian partnership standards, I think there is a really big need because of just my my small research with the humanitarian workers in Istanbul. You know, this is the megacity and there are international organizations, national organizations, UN agencies, and there is huge response to the Syrian refugees. And there are huge community working in in here as the humanitarian aid workers. But just the. Just limit the power of these totally aware what is the Sphere standards just they are saying, OK, my organization is applying it and I need to learn more.
So I think this is one of the homework for all of us for and providing some opportunities to the humanitarian aid workers in in all contexts. I am stopping here. Thank you. Thank you, Zain. Very important remarks indeed,Schumann. May I ask you for your last. Words on on this topic in this webinar. Thank you very much. And again, our starting from the last sentence that my colleague said just said that a Humanitarian Charter is a professional work and that things can be done, things can be done professionally. So these are very different and over the last couple of decades or from a very kind of. These are organized humanitarian discourse, we are gradually getting more informative, structured, coordinated emergency response, disaster risk reduction and everything. So what I'm trying to say, this disaster risk reduction, immediate response is an emergency discloser of professional skills. And it is important that people develop this professional skill.
Anybody can do it, but some people can do it professionally. So they are come each day the capacity building of humanitarian responders, particularly those the frontline workers, the local aid workers. Recently and last year, our Commission Leadership Academy, Bangladesh, undertake a learning need assessment in Cox's budget in this Ringa emergency sector. And we talked around four hundred and fifty aid workers and we found that a very young group of people just coming out from university college or moving from another sector, starting running stage and everything, but do not have enough knowledge about the humanitarian response skills, which is particularly Core Humanitarian Standard is promoting Core Humanitarian Standard competency framework.
So it is important we as a community of humanitarian aid workers, we need to stress and demand. These is a professional skill and these professional skill actually ultimately impact on the vulnerable people's life. So it is as important as we support people for their food or emergency aid. Thank you. Thank you, Sumant. That's a really important issue. The whole professionalization skill set for profession, for humanitarian workers and to really not underestimate the importance to understand what we're actually doing in order to not do more harm than good. Very briefly, we're starting to lose people here who need to go to next calls. David, over to you for for your last reflections, 20 seconds. I'll say this help is currently urbanising. Right now, we have a system that some might say was rather bloated and ill suited to the urban world of sameness and what we need to do in the future. Smaller, nimbler, more flexible, more supportive. Well, also, that was quick, Pamela, over to you and I'll try to match that reflection from government is from Bangladesh to Australia. Municipalities lack experience in huge disasters.
And so I wonder if policies and standards can maybe be tied somehow to the Sendai framework and somehow to the national disaster management agencies who are responsible for coordinating this stuff over. Thank you. Thank you, Pam. And that's a great way for me to end with an opening to future things that Sphere intends to work on, which is specifically on linking the Sphere standards more to end the Amma's work.
And there is also a zero guidance out there now Sphere on Sphere. And that makes a direct link to the Sendai framework. We hear you. And it's those are a very important few leads for us to move on. I want to I want to draw this conversation to a close. I want to thank hugely all five participants, all five speakers at the audience for a really engaged discussion.
I want to thank my colleagues Barbara Sartore, Sertori and Wassila Mansouri for their support in making this webinar happen in the first place. It wouldn't have without them very clearly. And I'm hoping that we can actually produce a couple of things out of this wealth of information that we've gathered today. You will hear from us, please. If you want to know what's happening with Sphere, go and subscribe to our newsletter or go to our website and get in touch with our Sphere standards dot org. That's where the website is again. Thank you. Have a good evening. Good afternoon. Good rest of the morning, wherever you are and hope to see you again soon. Thank you. Bye..