Your organization collects data every time a team goes to the field, but is this data fully utilized, or is it lost within a PDF document? Would you like to visualize your NGO’s core information on a map in order to get a better sense of where the needs are and, therefore, to plan your activities accordingly? Do you want to implement a new activity but only have the name of the village and are unsure where that village is?
The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” could not apply better than to GIS applications: using a map, you can visualize at a glance where needs are and where resources are, and then to analyse how best to link the two. Having a geographic overview of a situation can dramatically improve evidence-based decision-making. From printed base maps (where infrastructure data provides a good overview of a region) to sector-specific dynamic maps (to quickly visualize the evolution of a situation through time), geographic information is vital for a good understanding of a situation. In order to be able to produce maps, you need to find the existing geographic data and ensure your sector data is in a usable format. You also need to conduct analysis relevant to each sector. A GIS strategy allows you to define standard procedures that optimize workflow and ensure that GIS products reach the people who require the information. CartONG assists humanitarian organizations in their GIS work with any or all of these steps.
Learn more about how CartONG can help you with your GIS and mapping projects below:
You can also visit the Information Management and Capacity building pages as they are related.
The request for mapping support in the Gulf of Guinea was inspired by the work done in support of the AFD's Sahel regional team. In 2021, CartONG's support was mainly concentrated on the creation of AFD’s activities databases per country. In addition to this, different GIS resources and mapping training were provided to the GIS referents of each agency in order to make them autonomous in map production. To know more about this support, please read our 2020 Annual Report.
In 2022, support will probably continue to accompany the referents in their usage of databases and mapping.
In 2021, Max Haavelaar France and CartONG worked together in developping and testing IM tools within the framework of the "Strengthening CSOs' Information Management" project co-funded by AFD. In particular, work was done on the Program data self-assessment methodology (available in French here) as part of the revision of the IM structure of Max Havelaar France, a process that will continue in 2022."
In the summer of 2020, CartONG was contacted by ECPM's team to build an interactive web map that would display the status and key statistics on death penalty in each country of the world and help support their advocacy work as the NGO was celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Read more »As Covid vaccines started to arrive in low- and middle-income COVAX participant countries, successful vaccination programs in those countries were dependent on geographic data to help identify priority population groups and to plan efficient "last mile" vaccine delivery. South Sudan was identified as a pilot project to assess which data was needed and implement good practices for other countries that will receive the vaccine. The support provided by CartONG consisted of data cleaning and setting up a data model and was conducted in collaboration with MapAction.
In May 2020 UNICEF Mexico launched the first activation of the 3-year Long Term Agreement signed with UNICEF HQ, CartONG and MapAction in the second half of 2019. This first activation occurred after UNICEF was approached by the Mexican Ministry of Education to support the creation of a dashboard aiming to display and monitor real-time information on key education indicators on elementary schools at the national level in order to map COVID-19 affectations before the start of the new school year.
Read more »CartONG worked with SCET and EPFAM on a preliminary assessment that will be included in a regional action plan designed to improve tourism development in Mayotte. As part of this diagnosis, CartONG facilitated a participatory mapping workshop in October 2020, with SCET during a short field mission. This workshop was organized to consult some of the inhabitants of Kawéni about their leisure activities. During the workshop, the participants were encouraged to share information about what they are doing during their free time and to locate leisure activities on a map. The workshop was also an opportunity for the local community to receive a short introductory training to Mobile Data Collection, the data then collected has been integrated in an online interactive map. Further consultation activities have been on hold due to the pandemic, but the project will continue into 2021.
To know more about this initiative, please read our 2020 Annual Report.
CartONG is supporting the CliMigra_Form program, which is deployed through a partnership between the University of Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint Denis (France) and the University of Paris Khartoum (Sudan). This project aims to develop training in participatory and citizen inquiry on two topics specific to the Sudanese context: climate and migrations.
In 2020, CartONG conducted 2 remote training sessions for a team of French and Sudanese social science and geography researchers and students, in order to help them understand how participatory and subjective mapping methodologies may be used as a way to collect both qualitative and quantitative data during a field research. Additional guidance on participatory and subjective mapping methodologies will be provided in 2021.
To know more about this project, please check out our 2020 Annual Report.
This project consisted in the production of 5 maps to report on AFD's support in Tunisia between 2011 and 2020. In addition to the exported maps, the goal was to provide QGIS projects to the team so that they can easily update the maps themselves.
To know more about this support, please check out our 2020 Annual Report.
Following the success of the data collaborative project in the Democratic Republic of Congo organized in 2017-18 by CartONG and OpenStreetMap-DRC on health-related data, a similar initiative is being launched in 2019 on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) data.
This project is being launched with the support of the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), following the PILAEP 2 project (Promotion of Innovative Modalities for Access to Drinking Water), which aims to set up sustainable drinking water supply systems for populations in the suburban districts of Kinshasa and Bas Congo not served by the national water supply authority.
Read more »CartONG gave a 2-day remote training to 9 program managers of Acting for Life to provide them with an introduction to the use of QGIS. The aim of this training was to show the basics of GIS so the participants could become autonomous in producing simple maps they need in their daily work.
To learn more about this project, please check out our 2020 Annual Report.