English 
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.
CartONG is participating, on behalf of the French Development Agency, to the scientific impact evaluation of the PRIQH2 project implemented by the Tunisian Rehabilitation and Urban Renovation Agency (ARRU). This evaluation is co-lead by the United Nations University and BJKA consulting. CartONG brings its expertise in GIS and spatial analysis of urban evolution to the table.
The "Strengthening CSOs' Information Management" project aims to professionalize French-speaking Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the use and implementation of methods, tools and processes related to the different stages of the data analysis chain.
Co-financed by AFD for 3 years (early 2020 - late 2022) and implemented with the support of 10 partners, this project will make it possible for CartONG to continue its work in support of the sector by promoting the pooling and dissemination of new resources, both practical (tools, tutorials, training modules, etc.) and strategic (studies, etc.) to all humanitarian and development actors.
In alphabetical order, the 10 partners of the project are:
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.
The PILAEP 2 project, in collaboration with several partners including the DIAL laboratory and the INS-RDC, has enabled significant data collection and analysis work (particularly for evaluation purposes in a results-based management approach). In order to ensure that access and updating of this data is sustainable, particularly for local actors, AFD wanted to support a sustainable collaboration approach in the DRC and Kinshasa in particular.
The objective of this approach will be to establish an inventory of actors, data and barriers in order to encourage sharing, and to work together to analyse these data. To this end, stakeholders will be encouraged to rely on existing resources within their various organizations, public authorities, but also open data platforms and in particular OpenStreetMap. A pilot field mission will also be organised to test, with interested partners, the methodologies developed together. The provisional timeframe:
The RESILAC (Inclusive Economic and Social Recovery of Lake Chad) project and consortium identified during its start-up phase the need to improve the management of its information (also called Information Management or IM). CartONG is supporting Groupe URD in charge of the operational M&E system (système de suivi et d'évaluation des réalisations) on the information management component.
To this end, CartONG :
CartONG a été sollicité par le Maroni Lab, un laboratoire d’expérimentation urbaine basé à Saint Laurent du Maroni en Guyane, pour l’accompagner à l’animation d’ateliers de cartographie participative avec les habitants de 2 quartiers informels de la ville. Ces ateliers ont permis aux habitants des quartiers de devenir acteur du processus de transformation urbaine de leur ville et de l’amélioration de leur cadre de vie. CartONG a mis à jour la carte des quartiers sur OpenStreetMap, formé les habitants à la collecte de données et l'équipe du Maroni Lab au SIG.
CartONG supported CARE's team in Jeremie, Haiti, as part of the "Vil nou pi si pou fanm yo" ("Our city is safer for women") project, an initiative funded by UN Women to identify and map unsafe or high-risk places for gender-based violence in 7 neighborhoods of the city of Jeremie, using a co-construction approach with youth and women communities living in these target districts.
Within the framework of this project, CartONG's role was to provide support in participatory mapping, first as part of a two-week field mission in Haiti, then as part of a post-mission remote follow-up to CARE's team in Jérémie. To this end, CartONG developed a methodology of participatory mapping workshops adapted to the specific needs of the project centered around the uMap tool.
The maps produced as part of this project are intended to be used as awareness-raising tools for Jeremie's security and justice stakeholders, as well as on a larger scale, for all the city's youth and women's communities.
With funding from the Digital Square program of PATH, CartONG has collaborated with the Global Healthsites mapping project to test the new features of the platform, which aims at sharing open data on heath facilities via OpenStreetMap. To do so, CartONG has implemented a field mission in Senegal together with the company Geomatica and the local OpenStreetMap community to survey exhaustively all the facilities in the Saint-Louis département. The field mission was followed by a workshop in Dakar to launch a "data collaborative" approach and encourage the sharing of health data between stakeholders (UN agencies, NGOs and government).
CartONG did an evaluation of the mapping and database needs of the permanent secretariat for NGOs (SPONG) of Central African Republic, on behalf of the Bioforce training institute. This project aimed at producing an assessment report which included a needs assessment, analysis of strengths and weaknesses of the current system in place at the SPONG, secondary data mining, technical scenario options, and a capacity building plan. Two maps were also produced to support the SPONG.
« Educ'AuRA: objective 2030 » is a project implemented in partnership with the association “Les Petits Débrouillards” aimed at raising awareness among the citizens of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and to encourage them to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. A total of 11 SDGs are to be addressed through various activities across the region.
In 2018, we participated to 2 festivals, and organized 4 activities for young audiences, 2 mapathons and 1 conference during the 2018 GeOnG Forum.
This project is implemented with the support of different regional partners : RCF Savoie and local associative structures for youth. Learn more by reading our news here & here, or by checking our 2018 Annual Report.
"Maps from here & abroad" aims to foster the social inclusion of the migrant population in France through two main kinds of activities: participatory mapping on OSM during mapathons, and sensitive mapping workshops, meaning the freehand drawing of maps based on the affect one has for a space.
The objective of this initiative is to offer these activities to the residents of emergency accommodation centers or CADA, everywhere in France in order to raise awareness about digital cartography, but also on an artistic and creative form of mapping. This project was implemented with the support of several partner organisations such as Bibliothèques sans frontières, Aurore, and many more, as well as CartONG's volunteers.
Maps from here & abroad was originally financed by Fondation de France from May 2018 to May 2019. It will continue in 2019 and 2020 with the support of other donors.
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