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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, in consortium with MapAction, has been selected by UNICEF via a Long Term Agreement for Services (LTA-S) to provide support to different UNICEF country operations and HQ over the period 2019-2022. For our first activation, CartONG and MapAction will provide support to the Mexican Ministry of Education in monitoring school attendance rates after the gradual lifting of the Covid-19 restrictions in Mexico from May 17th, 2020 onwards. To do so, we will build an interactive dashboard diplaying:
1) school attendance/absence rates at the federation, state and municipality levels
2) reported reasons behind school absences
3) state of WASH and hygiene facilities at school premises
We will connect our server to the data from the Ministry of Education source, develop the dashboard, document it and train UNICEF Mexico staff to support it long-term.
In 2019, CartONG was selected to support HI on a GIS assessment and initial support to launch a GIS strategy.
For this purpose, CartONG evaluated the needs in terms of GIS by interviewing the key players to identify their current usages, and practices, as well as their expectations and difficulties in terms of geodata and geoproducts and reviewed the GIS-related documentation and tools used by HQ and field operations. The result of this needs assessment, was a report that CartONG sent to Handicap International giving an overview of the current situation and needs, with a list of short and long term recommendations and potential scenarios. These recommendations and scenarios were then discussed with the HI team to help them think through their options for a GIS strategy to take off in the organisation, according to its financial, technical, HR constraints and the opportunities that a greater use of geodata and geoproducts would bring for certain key sectors of HI and different support functions.
The collaboration continued in 2020 with the development of an internal dashboard to support them in the Covid-19 related adaptation of their operations (compiling key pandemic figures and information on the HI operations’ status & vulnerabilities in relation to the pandemic), as well as by interventions on the topic of GIS and data in one of their internal seminars with field teams.
Learn more in this news as well as in the 2019 Annual Report of CartONG.
CartONG is helping the Université Côte d'Azur and its network to create a platform mapping the positive impacts of the Covid-19 confinement - in particular, looking at environmental and societal impacts - so as to foster positive changes in France after the end of the crisis. As part of this collaboration, CartONG has set up a webmapping platform (using Ushahidi), supported the data model creation as well as helped the facilitation of the launch of the project.
More information about this project here.
CartONG conducted a 3-day GIS training to the operational departement of SIF in January 2020, which was funded by Le Group'.
In 2019, CartONG produced one main story map with 9 individual story maps on 150 slides. In fact, in addition to its annual global report, UNAIDS wanted to create story maps to communicate about particular case studies. The selected case studies highlight programmes and activities around the globe.
Learn more here or by clicking on our 2019 Annual Report.
In 2019, CartONG was solicited to support the ICRC GIS team for two different projects. The first project was a story map highlighting what role GIS analysis can play when trying to assess the populations’ access to street lights in different neighbourhoods of Buenaventura. The story map can be found here. The second project was to build an atlas for Venezuela, including dedicated maps created for ICRC but also containing readily available information from the web in one document which can be used to brief new staff ready to be deployed. Learn more in our 2019 Annual Report.
L'équipe de bénévoles de CartONG a réalisé pour Planète Réfugiés 6 cartes sur le nombre de prisonniers condamnés à mort dans le monde pour soutenir un événement organisé sur ce thème à la Faculté de droit de Grenoble.
CartONG developed a large part of the mobile and analysis components of FACET, a facility monitoring tool for Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) services in schools (WINS) and in health facilities (WIH).
The tools are based on Kobo/ODK for mobile data collection and on a Power BI dashboard for online visualisation of indicators and an Excel offline dashboard for more advanced analysis.
The WASH in Health Facility Evaluation Tool (FACET), jointly developed by Terre des hommes, Eawag and CartONG with support from the UNICEF/WHO Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), is based on globally recognised indicators and is suitable across the continuum of humanitarian and development interventions.
In 2017, CartONG also designed an online dashboard with Power BI linked to the FACET WASH Health Facility (see an example with test data) and School evaluation mobile data collection tools (here).
In 2018, CartONG helped build the new version of the FACET mobile data collection and analysis tools, based on a review of the needs and also an update of the key JMP indicators on which the tools are based.
In 2019, the work on the new version of FACET for both schools and health facilities continued, with the realigning of the mobile and analysis tools with updates to the current dashboards and the development of new dashboards. This was done for Terre des hommes in direct partnership with EAWAG, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology.
Following the first strategy of 2013-2015, CartONG worked together with MSF Switzerland in defining the evolution of GIS in MSF-CH to support the movement for the period of 2016-2019.
As part of the 2016-2019 strategy, CartONG acts as technical partner and, to this end, provides support in mapping & GIS through the MSF GIS Unit, as well as in mobile data collection (MDC) and capacity building (training workshop in "GIS Basic", in advanced GIS, etc.). Occasionally, CartONG staff gets deployed in the filed to support the whole MSF movement.
During the first year of the strategy, we supported 17 field missions covered by 8 GIS Specialists for a total of 135 weeks. Our training offer also increased, we organized 3 one-week trainings for GIS basic skills, GIS specialists and GIS focal points. We started to develop a new version of the MSF Map Centre including an embedded portal to monitor map requests, which has also strengthened our IT infrastructure. The other key development was the Briefing tool, integrated in the MSF Map Centre. Learn more by reading our 2016 Annual Report.
During the second year of the 2016/2019 partnership, more than 300 paper maps were created on ArcGIS to answer the needs of MSF missions. Important work was also conducted regarding the creation of the first few Country Kits for MSF. In 2017,we also gave remote support to MSF teams deployed in the occurrence of a crisis. In total,we have supported 24 field missions covered by 12 GIS specialists for a total of 171 weeks. We have also supported 8 local cartographers in the field to respond to diseases outbreaks, to facilitate the implementation of WASH programs, and to map refugee camps. We also continued our work on the Map Centre and the Briefing Tool, and we developed some key products such as the "EpiMaps" (epidemiological maps). Lastly, CartONG has taken an active and significant part in the writing of the proposal for the"GEOMSF project" which was validated during the first semester of 2017. The GEOMSF project will allow the scaling of services currently offered by the GIS Unit. Learn more by reading our 2017 Annual Report.
During the third year of the 2016/2019 partnership, the mapping team continued working on the country kits and further developing thematic maps related to the WASH and epidemiology sectors, while answering direct mapping requests, often related to emergencies. In 2018, a total of 280 maps were produced and we covered 3 major crisis for which we were activated in rush mode. We also worked on the structuring of the reference databases, and released the Map Centre v2. The new Map Centre contains more contextual pages and also more useful tools for GIS and non GIS people. In 2018, we also created a total of 7 new web applications on top of the 6 previous released ones that we have continued to maintain. In addition, we gave remote support to MSF teams deployed in emergency settings. In total, we supported 28 field missions covered by 16 GIS specialists for a total of 204 weeks. Our training offer also grew, and we re-organized the 4 one-week training sessions for GIS basic skills, MDC, GIS specialists and GIS focal points. Lastly, CartONG took an active part in the "GEOMSF project". CartONG is participating with 2 hats, one as the "client" of GEOMSF as part of the MSF GIS Unit, helping and supporting the needs definition, and one as "technical advisor" during the first phase of the project which focuses on analysis and the architecture definition in order to develop a common vision of the next platform, tools and processes for the GIS Unit. Learn more by reading our 2018 Annual Report.
During the fourth and last year of the 2016/2019 partnership, there was a strong collaboration surrounding the GeoMSF program and a new overall GIS platform was developed. We also worked on the 2020-2023 strategy for the GIS Unit. We continued to provide mapping services, yet our main goal in 2019 was to look at ArcGIS Pro in order to undertake a migration from ArcMap to ArcGIS Pro during the year so as to align the technologies with the GeoMSF new infrastructure. Regarding the online maps, we slowed down our activities as the GeoMSF had the mandate to provide an easier and faster way to produce them, but still produced 9 web maps (3 from scratch and 6 by using ArcGIS Online applications). We thus concentrated our effort on improving the business part of our activities, as well as the user and technical documentation. We also significantly improved our quality control processes and continued maintaining the Map Centre v2 by implementing improvements and managing bug fixing throughout the year. Data management was our main focus during the 2019 year, in order to make it the cornerstone of the GIS Unit. Additionally, we worked closely with the Missing Maps team in order to better use and contribute to the OSM database. In 2019, we also gave remote support to MSF teams deployed in different contexts. In total, we accompanied 20 field missions covered by 11 GIS specialists from our headquarters. We also supported 11 long-term GIS specialists on building capacity and sharing their work within the organization. Last but not least, we also organized the GIS week. Learn more by reading our 2019 Annual Report.
CartONG is implementing a Map Portal for UNHCR. This portal is a repository of all pdf maps produced by UNHCR and in the future partners as well. Other mapping products such as webmaps are also available through the map portal and users can request new mapping products through the portal as well.
In 2018, CartONG continued to maintain the tool.
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