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Emergency Shelter Solutions and Standards

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Key points
  • Ensure minimum standards of covered living space per person are respected
  • Shelter solutions should be adapted to the geographical context, climate, cultural practice and habits, and local availability of skills and accessibility to adequate construction materials in any given context
  • Consider the life span of shelter materials as they deteriorate with time. Further to the initial distribution, installation or construction, replacement, reinforcement or maintenance may be required
  • Individual family shelter should always be preferred over communal accommodation as it provides the necessary privacy, psychological comfort, and emotional safety. Whenever possible, displaced people should be empowered to choose where to live, and to build their own shelters, promoting a sense of ownership and self-reliance
  • Whenever possible, persons of concern should be empowered to build their own shelters, promoting a sense of ownership and self-reliance

Post emergency phase

The SPHERE standards (2018) remain the internationally recognised quantifiable minimum standards for humanitarian responses. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that these remain minimum standards and that it is imperative to consider the next stages of the sheltering process as early as possible in the emergency response. In protracted situations, an approach that is able to breach the division between emergency, transitional, and durable shelter and that links relief, rehabilitation and development should be sought.

Standards to be applied to transitional and/or durable shelters will depend on the context, and will be commonly defined by shelter partners and in close coordination with government authorities and development partners.

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