GIS strategy 2013-2015, Map Centre and mapping (MSF-CH)

MSF Switzerland initiated in 2012 a reflection on the value of GIS in their operations. The last quarter of 2013 saw the beginning of a strong collaboration between MSF-CH and CartONG. We support MSF-CH in defining their needs and are putting into place the first 2-years plan GIS strategy.

In 2014 we created a Map Centre. It consists in a library designed to accommodate all maps of interest to MSF in their country of operation plus links to base data for all those countries. Atlases for all countries of interest have been prepared by a CartONG staff. The Map Centre has been developed with GeoNetwork, an Open-Source solution: “GeoNetwork is a catalog application to manage spatially referenced resources. It provides powerful metadata editing and search functions as well as an embedded interactive web map viewer”.

CartONG is also implementing a PostgreSQL/PostGIS database. This database will contain reference data and will be available for MSF’s Staff and some dedicated applications.

CartONG has also been actively supporting emergency mapping for crisis where MSF-CH was involved and seconded GIS officers for the Ebola crisis (see Emergency mapping deployments with MSF-CH).

A screenshot of MSF-CH's Map Centre