As the Covid-19 pandemic continued spreading worldwide in the second quarter of 2020, our staff and volunteer teams have remained determined on providing the best Information Management support possible to our partners and the sector as a whole.
As you’ll discover below, we have recently set up an IM Covid-19 Help Center that will be operational until the end of 2020. In the continuity of the work that started in March, we have also kept providing this quarter extended support to MSF and UNHCR, our two main partners.
We would like to take the opportunity of this newsletter to thank our volunteers for their incredible dedication. Since March 23rd, we have been able to support 23 projects thanks to their help – a level of pro bono support that we would never have been able to offer to the humanitarian, development and social action sectors without them! If you’d like to see an example of the support they contributed to provide, we invite you to read our article about the RUSH initiative, or check the resources section below.
We are therefore very pleased to announce that CartONG has recently released an "Associative Life & Volunteer Strategy" for the 2020-2023 period that will help build on this momentum while also helping embody the spirit of the Associative Project that we published last year. Among many aspects that the strategy will encourage, this document will also help facilitate more volunteer initiatives, such as YAKA – one of the two projects led by volunteers that CartONG is financing this year.
Last but not least, we invite you all to learn more about the work that our teams conducted, the projects we implemented and the partners we supported last year, by reading the 2019 CartONG Annual Report.
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~ CartONG has set up an IM Covid-19 Help Center ~
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To provide humanitarian and development NGOs with the best possible support at this challenging time of required social distancing, CartONG has set up the Information Management (IM) Covid-19 Help Center.
Until December 2020, we will make available openly accessible guidance - technical briefs, tutorials, tech watch findings, case studies and lessons learned - and will provide pro bono remote support - webinars, coaching sessions and a helpdesk/hotline - to help NGOs adapt their Information Management, Monitoring & Evaluation and accountability activities. Learn more and request support here, or below.
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~ CartONG strengthens collaboration with MapAction ~
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In the past, CartONG and MapAction have been interacting frequently in the field, during conferences and via mutual partners. We've also collaborated through the H2H Network and the Missing Map project, and more recently, we've worked together on several initiatives for MSF-CH, UNICEF and our new program aiming to reinforce Information Management within francophone CSOs.
We are very happy to announce that the collaboration between CartONG and MapAction is going to a new level with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding by CartONG's Technical Director Sandra Sudhoff and MapAction’s Chief Executive Liz Hughes.
This new agreement details general principles of collaboration around shared goals, mutual commitments as well as more operational aspects on financial and communication cooperation, with the hope that we can amplify each other’s work. Learn more in our short article.
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- CartONG receives more and more sollicitations to help NGOs digitalize and streamline their data processes. This is the case for example for a new project with the Voute Nubienne Association, for which CartONG was solicited for an assessment of the data component of their Monitoring and Evaluation system, to evaluate the different technical options that are available and then support the implementation of the chosen system.
- CartONG has also for a few months been supporting the Africa department of the AFD (French Development Agency) on its database of operational projects and associated mapping needs.
- CartONG will also be recording a podcast for DEVCO over the summer on the question of data collection adapted to the current Covid-19 social distancing constraints, as part of their Evaluation in Crisis Initiative.
- CartONG is happy to announce the upcoming partnership with ECPM (Ensemble contre la peine de mort), a French NGO dedicated to the abolition of death penalty worldwide. As part of the project, CartONG will develop an interactive web map to display the status and key statistics on death penalty in each country of the world. The map will be built on a custom platform using Vue.js libraries. Additionally, CartONG will support ECPM in structuring the dataset to ensure smooth interaction between the data and the web map.
- As part of the Long Term Agreement for services started last year with UNICEF, CartONG and MapAction have received a first activation to develop a dashboard for the monitoring of school attendance for the Mexican Ministry of Education during and after the Covid-19 outbreak - the work has already started: more information to come about this new project in our next newsletter!
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CARTONG IN NUMBERS THIS QUARTER
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17 organizations attended the Information Management workshop on June 18th
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More than30members attended the CartONG online General Assembly on June 6th
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11 online maps has been created on ArcGIS online in support of the MSF GIS Unit - 10 of which are related to the Covid epidemic |
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49 data sets for 10 different operations have been uploaded into iRHIS in support of UNHCR |
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9 new people have joined CartONG this quarter, which includes 2 service civic volunteers, 2 interns as well as 1 regular consultant |
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- CartONG developed with the Cote d’Azur University the Open Map for the Global Pause, to map the positive effects on the environment of the Covid19 lockdown - you can still contribute to it!
- Production of 6 maps by CartONG volunteers on the services available in different districts of Bordeaux in support of ACF to allow better access to information for people in precarious situations.
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~ A quick update about the 2020 GeOnG! ~
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Given the information in our possession at this stage, we are still planning on organizing the GeOnG in Chambéry from November 2nd to 4th, 2020.
However, we have decided to postpone the opening of registrations to the beginning of September as we will make a final decision on the format of the event at the end of the summer, based on the latest available information on the Covid-19 situation. If needs be, the entire forum will be moved to an online format.
For the rest, we are still working on compiling the best program possible to illustrate the main theme of he 2020 GeOnG "People at the heart of Information Management: promoting responsible and inclusive practices". We should soon release a first version of the agenda including the roundtable topics.
We invite all organizations that haven’t yet submitted a suggestion for a session to do so before the end of July using the Open Call for Suggestions form below. We are still welcoming ideas for workshops as well as for speed-geekings. If easier, you can also contact us by email.
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~ We hope things will be back to normal in September! ~
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We hope to start the monthly mapathons in September - more information to come soon. In the meantime, remote mapathons will continue over the summer! Stay tuned on social media.
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~ A big thank you! ~
Thank you to all the volunteers who have helped us on our response to the covid-19 crisis in support of our partners and of the sector, who have participated in the online mapathons and attended our online volunteer happy hours in the past quarter.
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