About us

Quality and standards

Zwei Help-Mitarbeiter bei der Kontrolle eines Neubaus

We focus on quality

The environment in which aid is required for people in acute humanitarian crises and chronic poverty crises is becoming increasingly complex, and with it the demands on the professionalism of aid organizations and the quality of their projects.

We work according to the motto: "It's not enough to do good, you have to do it well!"

Help has set itself the goal of ensuring and continuously improving the high quality of its work, work processes and work results. In practice, the quality of our work is based on internationally recognized principles and standards of humanitarian aid and development cooperation. The most important standards and codes that Help is committed to complying with and implementing can be found here:

Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS)

The Core Humanitarian Standard for Quality and Accountability (CHS) describes the essential elements of principled, responsible and high-quality humanitarian action. The nine commitments of the CHS for humanitarian actors can be used by them to improve the quality and effectiveness of their interventions. The CHS places the communities and people affected by a humanitarian crisis at the center of humanitarian action and supports and promotes greater accountability to them in particular.

The CHS is the result of an intensive global consultative process and combines the most important elements of existing humanitarian standards and commitments (including the People-In-Aid Code of Conduct on Humanitarian Action): People-In-Aid Code of Conduct on the Management and Support of Humanitarian and Development Personnel; Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP) Standard on Accountability and Quality Management; Sphere Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Action).

German Sustainability Code

The user group of the German Sustainability Code includes large and small, public and private companies with and without sustainability reporting, companies subject to reporting requirements and all those organizations that want to inform their stakeholders about their sustainability performance. To comply with the Sustainability Code, users create a declaration in the Sustainability Code database for twenty Sustainability Code criteria and the supplementary non-financial performance indicators selected from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies (EFFAS).

Here you can find Help's sustainability declaration in accordance with the Sustainability Code from the 2019 reporting year (in German):

UN Global Compact

Help has been participating in the United Nations Global Compact since 2015. The UN Global Compact is a strategic initiative for companies that commit to aligning their business activities and strategies with ten universally recognized principles in the areas of human rights, labour standards, environmental protection and anti-corruption.

Help has developed its own guidelines for cooperation with companies based on these principles. We seek dialog with companies that share these basic values with Help in order to develop sustainable partnerships.

Here you can find our guidelines for cooperation with companies (2022, German):

Sphere Standards

The Sphere Project was initiated in 1997 by a wide range of humanitarian aid organizations worldwide with the aim of developing generally applicable standards in key areas of humanitarian aid. Among other things, the "Sphere Handbook" was jointly developed, which contains a Humanitarian Charter and minimum standards in humanitarian aid. The aim of the Sphere Handbook is to improve the quality of humanitarian aid in disaster and conflict situations and to improve the accountability of humanitarian actors to the beneficiaries of aid measures, donors and the public.

ICRC Code of Conduct

Help is a signatory to the Code of Conduct of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and aid organizations in disaster relief.

In 1994, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and eight of the world's largest aid organizations agreed to establish universal standards for humanitarian aid operations and to improve their quality. The Code of Conduct comprises ten principles that ensure the quality of humanitarian aid.

VENRO

Help is a full member of VENRO, a voluntary association of about 120 German political development and humanitarian non-governmental organisations.

The aim of VENRO is fair globalisation and overcoming worldwide poverty. As a full member we undertake to comply with the three codes of ethics of VENRO:   

  1. VENRO Code of Conduct for Development-Related Public Relations
  2. VENRO Code of Conduct Transparency, organisational management and monitoring
  3. VENRO Code of Conduct for Children's Rights