City data was scarce, often obsolete, and hardly accessible. So, when Open Cities made efforts to tap into local resources and fill the data gap—introducing opportunities for free, accessible, and collaborative data—Congolese students jumped on the chance.
Tag: Africa
Quand les communautés africaines s’emparent du numérique pour cartographier leurs villes
Grâce au projet Open Cities Africa, les autorités municipales travaillent avec des universités locales, des ONG et des membres des communautés pour recueillir des données géographiques précises afin de bâtir un avenir plus résilient.
African communities are closing the digital map gap for cities
Sub-Saharan Africa’s urban areas are among the world’s least mapped and most vulnerable. Through the Open Cities Africa program, municipal governments work with local universities, NGOs, and community members to collect detailed geographic data for a more resilient future.
Comment combler l’écart numérique entre les sexes : l’exemple d’Open Cities Africa
Que se passe-t-il quand les cartes sont créées de manière disproportionnée par des hommes ? Les caractéristiques qui sont importantes pour les femmes, telles que les zones de marché, les espaces sûrs, comme les abris, ou les services spécifiques aux femmes, peuvent ne pas figurer sur les cartes.
How to Close the Digital Gender Gap: Lessons from Open Cities Africa
What happens when maps are disproportionately created by men? Features that are important to women such as market areas, safe spaces like shelters, or gender-specific services may not be included on the map.
The Open Cities AI Challenge
Segment buildings in African cities from aerial imagery and advance Responsible AI ideas for disaster risk management
À Saint-Louis, Sénégal, open source et cartographie libre pour s’adapter à la montée des eaux
Les données sont nécessaires pour la prise de décision. Elles sont utiles si elles sont à jour, précises et exhaustives, encore faut-il qu’elles soient accessibles et partagées !
Kinshasa en lutte contre les inondations grâce aux données libres d’accès
La métropole centrafricaine de Kinshasa (RDC), abrite aujourd’hui plus de 12 millions d’habitants et s’étend sur des vastes zones de faible altitude ou à flanc de collines souvent soumises à l’érosion et touchées par les inondations.
À Antananarivo, la cartographie libre comme outil de gestion collective des Fokontany
Open Cities vise à répondre à ce défaut d’information en appuyant les communautés locales – les Fokontany – à mieux collecter, partager et utiliser les données de leur territoire.
Au Cameroun, la cartographie libre pour aider Ngaoundéré à s’adapter au changement climatique
L’urbanisation de Ngaoundéré a eu lieu, en grande partie de façon spontanée, entraînant une occupation croissante de nombreuses zones humides exposées aux inondations chaque année et des versants des montagnes aux risques d’éboulement de blocs rocheux sans aménagements préalables.
My Experience as a Student Mapper for Open Cities Accra
Anyone can contribute to OpenStreetMap. But few gain the chance to see the other side of the collaborative mapping process: when field mappers take to the streets.
Tackling Coastal Flooding in Monrovia Slums: Understanding through partnerships, one community at a time
In the informal settlements of Liberia’s largest city, Open Cities Africa is introducing a dynamic open data workflow to support urban planning and protect residents from flood.
The Rise of Local Mapping Communities
In the past few years, there has been a meteoric rise of locally organized OpenStreetMap communities in developing countries working to improve the map in service of sustainable development activities.
City planning and community mapping: Gathering people and data in Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo
In Pointe Noire, community mapping is used by Open Cities Africa to collect data, raise awareness and put people at the centre of city planning and infrastructure projects.
Building web maps in Zanzibar
Developers and geospatial professionals from across Africa gathered in Zanzibar for a two-day workshop on using Mapbox tools with open imagery, highlighting what’s spurring geospatial innovation across the continent.
Uganda Bureau of Statistics engages in open mapping for resilience with the OpenStreetMap community
A milestone in the evolution of open data collaboration: Uganda Bureau of Statistics have teamed up with MapUganda to become part of the digital revolution.
Tool Design for Urban Resilience at the Open Cities Africa Second Regional Meeting
Consortia of local government and innovation teams from 11 cities across the African continent came to Tanzania to learn from each other and attend a packed 7 days of open source software and urban governance conferences in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar.
Comprendre les risques d’inondation à Niamey grâce à la cartographie open source, aux drones et à la modélisation
Pendant des millénaires, le fleuve Niger a été le poumon socioéconomique du Niger, mais aussi des pays voisins du bassin du Niger. Pourtant, même si cette imposante voie navigable permet à de nombreux Nigériens de se nourrir, s’approvisionner en eau, et gagner leur vie, elle présente également un grave risque d’inondation en Afrique de l’Ouest… Read more »
One Challenge, Many Challenges: Machine Learning for Mapping
OpenDRI is in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania this week for the annual conference of Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G 2018). With over 1000 expected attendees, this large gathering of geospatial enthusiasts is a prime opportunity to learn and share about the latest technology in mapping. Part of the pre-conference program, Tuesday morning… Read more »
Open Cities Africa Kickoff 2018
The Open Cities Africa Kickoff hosted the largest gathering of teams in Open Cities history this summer in Kampala, Uganda. For a week in June, eleven Open Cities project teams represented by 55 delegates convened as a cohort to receive training in innovative, open, and participatory data collection and mapping processes to support management of… Read more »
Open Cities Africa
Creating open spatial data on the built and natural environment, developing tools to assist key stakeholders to utilize risk information, and supporting local capacity-building necessary for implementing urban resilience interventions.
‘Malawi Mappers’ Mobilize to Improve Open Geospatial Data
Author: Christine Mhone is the GIS Projects Leader at mHub, Malawi’s first technology and innovation hub. She was nominated by mHub to represent Malawi at the first State of the Map Africa conference in Kampala, Uganda in 2017. Christine has continued to lead the Malawi Mappers community in adding data to OpenStreetMap. Christine can be… Read more »
Niger
The PGRC-DU is developing state-of-the-art tools to identify flooding hot-spots and evaluate the added value of flood mitigation measures. These tools will lead to better knowledge of flood-exposed assets and people in the city of Niamey.
“When Women Rise, Mountains Move” – Women in Technology and Mapping
At the first African State of the Map Conference, women spoke about compiling code, making maps and breaking cultural barriers.
High Resolution Digital Surface Models Using Drones for Coastal Communities in São Tomé and Príncipe
To help reduce disaster vulnerability in São Tomé and Príncipe, the OpenDRI team is supporting the Government in coastline exposure projections and drone mapping activities.
Mahatsangy: the start of a resilient open data movement in Madagascar
The OpenDRI project has catapulted discussions around data sharing in Madagascar, and productively problematized the lack thereof. It has engaged stakeholders to talk about best practices in geospatial data production and has reminded the country of the value of statistical and geospatial data in policy and investment decisions.
Mapping the Comoros Archipelago
The objective of the OpenDRI project in the Comoros is twofold: first, fill data gaps by building assets using OpenStreetMap (OSM) tools; and second, develop an online data-sharing platform to centralize and share risk data in the country.
What can you do with a high-resolution population map?
Population density is one of the most important statistics for development efforts across many sectors, and since early 2016 the World Bank has been collaborating with Facebook on evaluating a new source of high-resolution population data that sheds light on previously unmapped populations.
InaSAFE Training in Salima, Malawi
To meet the needs of the Government of Malawi, GFDRR asked Kartoza to conduct a three-day training on InaSAFE in Salima. With a total of 14 participants in attendance, there were staff from different government departments including the Department of Disaster Affairs, Surveys department, UNIMA-Polytechnic, Physical planning, and Department of Land Resources.
RASOR project support to flood risk analysis in Malawi: Workshop Debrief
OpenDRI and RASOR are working together to develop multi-hazard risk assessments for Malawi’s lakeshore region. A workshop was held in July 2016 to deliver the consolidated results of flood risk analyses conducted over the past year and to outline the RASOR platform process and procedure.
Uganda
In Uganda, the World Bank is supporting the Government to develop improved access to drought risk related information and quicken the decision of scaling up disaster risk financing (DRF) mechanisms.
Understanding Risk and Finance Conference
The Understanding Risk and Finance Conference (URf), held on November 17–20, 2015, at the African Union
in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, convened 450 disaster risk management experts and practitioners to discuss and
share knowledge on how to mitigate the socioeconomic, fiscal, financial, and physical impacts of disasters in
African nations.
Participatory Mapping for Historical Flood Inundation Extents
As the neighbourhoods of Ramani Huria have been mapped, it is now possible to start building upon these maps. This can take many forms, but the community is at the heart of how these maps are being used.
How are Ramani Huria maps being used in the wards?
Six Masters students from Columbia University evaluated Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team’s work in Tanzania and that of Dar Ramani Huria, whose efforts allow significant efficiency gains in government planning.
How Do You Start Mapping Unmapped Streets?
Nadia Whitehead of National Public Radio (NPR) highlights the value of thework the World Bank conducts in Tanzania through the Open Data for Resilience Initiative.
Battling Ebola in Sierra Leone: Data Sharing to Improve Crisis Response
In 2014, the largest Ebola outbreak in history occurred in West Africa. A number of data-driven initiatives sought to improve the quality of information available to humanitarians working to address the crisis, including the Ebola GeoNode that OpenDRI worked on deploying.
The losing battle against corruption: why open data is important for Africa
In this article Irene Ikomu discusses how transparency through open data has the potential to eradicate corruption in Africa, but in order for that to happen the whole continent has to buy in.
Rapid, Climate-Informed Development Needed to Keep Climate Change from Pushing More than 100 Million People into Poverty by 2030
“A new World Bank report shows that climate change is an acute threat to poorer people across the world, with the power to push more than 100 million people back into poverty over the next fifteen years. And the poorest regions of the world – Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia – will be hit the hardest.”
Harnessing the Power of the Crowd – Reflections Six Months after the Gorkha Earthquake in Nepal
Through the Open Data for Resilience project, The World Bank, GFDRR, and other partners are supporting efforts to map areas at risk before a disaster strikes.
•In the six months following the April 2015 earthquake, OpenStreetMap data for Nepal was accessed by more than 3,300 users using a GFDRR platform that tailored the data for response and recovery.
•Urban areas around the world, including cities in Indonesia, Philippines, Malawi and Bangladesh, are a major focus of mapping efforts.
Paying it forward in a digital age: A global community committed to a mapped world
When I first heard about OpenStreetMap (OSM) – the so called Wikipedia of maps, built by volunteers around the world – I was skeptical of its ability to scale, usability in decision making, and ultimate longevity among new ideas conceived in the digital age. Years later, having working on many disaster risk management initiatives across the globe, I can say that I am a passionate advocate for the power of this community. And I continue to be struck by the power of one small initiative like OSM that brings together people across cultures and countries to save lives. It is more than a technology or a dataset, it’s a global community of individuals committed to making a difference.
People may be surprised to find that the maps we take for granted in metropolitan areas of the developed world may be completely absent, vastly out of date, or pay-per-view in the developing world. Imagine an urban area without a transportation network, government agencies without access to the location of their assets (schools, health facilities, etc), or even a map without village names. This is the reality for many of the countries most vulnerable to disaster risk. Now, imagine this urban area facing an unprecedented crisis brought by flooding, an earthquake, a pandemic – think about the challenges of planning a response.
World Bank Using UAVs for Disaster Risk Reduction in Tanzania
An innovative World Bank team in Tanzania is exploring the use of UAVs for disaster risk reduction efforts. Spearheaded by colleague Edward Anderson, the team recently partnered with friends at Drone Adventures to capture very high-resolution images of flood-prone areas in the country’s capital. This imagery is now being used to generate Digital Terrain Models to develop more reliable flood-inundation models at… Read more »
The Kick Off Workshop-Community Mapping For Flood Resilience (#DarRamaniHuria)
Dar Ramani Huria is a Swahili phrase that means “The Open Map of Dar es Salaam” and getting more than 100 people from different Government and Non Government Institutions was the perfect opportunity to talk about Community Mapping and how it can be used for Flood Resilience. 26th March, 2015 was the Kick Off Workshop… Read more »
Community Mapping For Flood Resilience Kick Off Workshop
The kick-off workshop was held on March 26th at the Buni Innovation Hub, at the Commission for Science and Technology. Panel: Innovating Urban Flooding Primer: Addressing the Urban Flood Challenge—Innovations and Opportunities Rekha Menon, Program Leader, World Bank Prof. Robert Kiunsi, Dean of the School of Real Estate Studies (SRES), Ardhi University Julia Letara, Town… Read more »
In Malawi, Citizens Get Involved as Innovative Technologies Help Them Better Understand and Manage Disaster Risks
Citizens recently participated in a mapping exercise to provide data for early flood preparation in Malawi’s vulnerable districts. Mapping is the next step in the launch of the open source geospatial data platform in Malawi, providing vital information on natural disasters to district departments. More community engagement results in a clearer understanding of risks and disaster preparedness.
4 Years On, Looking Back at OpenStreetMap Response to the Haiti Earthquake
In 2014, Robert Soden reflected on the progress The World Bank and GFDRR made by becoming involved in the world of crowd sourced mapping. Now with a fully fledged program that leads dozens of projects worldwide and a host of strong partnerships, it is powerful to step back into his article and see where we’ve been and where OpenDRI has the potential to go.
Tackling Trouble in Paradise: Indian Ocean Island States to Build Financial Resilience to Natural Disasters
A pristine beach and warm paradise come to mind when there is mention of tropical islands such as the Seychelles or Mauritius, located in the southwest Indian Ocean. However, trouble can occur rapidly due to the region’s extreme vulnerability to cyclones, floods, earthquakes and tsunamis. In 2013, the impact of 15 tropical disturbances caused more… Read more »
New Field Guide Explores Open Data Innovations in Disaster Risk and Resilience
From Indonesia to Nepal, Haiti to Malawai, community members armed with smartphones and GPS systems are contributing to some of the most extensive and versatile maps ever created, helping inform policy and better prepare their communities for disaster risk.
Open Data for Resilience Initiative (OpenDRI): Overview
The goal of this Overview Report, published in May 2013, is to communicate the vision, approach and impact of the Open Data for Resilience Initiative (OpenDRI).