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Quality Standards


Four hundred organisations from six regions were consulted in order to develop the Quality Standards – the first time such an exercise has been undertaken on this scale.

The Quality Standards are available in the form of handbooks and can be used by your organisation as guidance documents, and to review and improve the quality of the humanitarian learning and assessment you provide.

There are two sets of Quality Standards:

  • Humanitarian Learning Standards
  • Standards for Assessment of Humanitarian Competencies

Each handbook contains seven/ eight Standards split into two levels – silver and gold. Each individual Standard has key actions which organisations can review themselves against to assess if they are meeting that Standard.

The silver level Standards are for organisations that are newer to learning and development and contain half the key actions of the more extensive gold level which is intended for the more experienced organisations.

Organisations can choose to start with the silver Standards and then progress to the gold Standards, or go straight to gold depending on internal capacity and expertise.

Quality Standards Resources

The following Standards are available for free below.

  • At-a-glance guides summarising each set of Quality Standards
  • Quality Standards handbook outlining the Standards and the accompanying key actions in detail
  • Self-assessment forms enabling you to assess your organisation against each set of Standards and identify strengths and weaknesses
  • Quality Manual setting out the process for organisations to be externally reviewed against the Standards and achieve HPass Certified Status

 Service Update

Following a comprehensive review of our Quality Standards, we have made the strategic decision to discontinue the Quality Standards auditing service. This decision allows us to focus on enhancing other aspects of our offerings that align closely with our mission to support the humanitarian sector.

While we will no longer offer Quality Reviews or Support Services related to Quality Standards, we wish to assure our community that the resources developed under the Quality Standards initiative will remain accessible. These resources continue to represent best practices in humanitarian learning and assessment and can serve as valuable references for organisations seeking to benchmark and improve their learning and assessment provision.

We are grateful for our partners’ and users’ engagement and feedback throughout the review process. Your insights have been invaluable and will continue to inform the development of our services going forward.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for any questions or further information.

The humanitarian quality standards are excellent because they raise the learning and assessment provision within the humanitarian sector for our institution.

Afghanistan is a country recovering from and still experiencing conflict. We are providing a wide array of trainings related to humanitarian action, and we find that the standards have helped us improve our services.