Learn more about CartONG, an NGO specialized in digital mapping and data management in the humanitarian sector.
Hello Mary thank you for being here with me today uh to talk about uh your organization K about digital mapping uh the work that you do uh here at k um geographic information systems uh it’s it’s one of the key ations of satellite and digital technology in the international solidarity sector in all
Faces of emergency uh so it’s kind of why we wanted to talk to you today um can you tell us more about K about your vision about your missions yes sure um so KJ is an international NGO we are based in France in the Alps and we are specialized in mapping and data
Management our mission is to help uh organization um that are in the humanitarian and development sectors in being more effective uh on the project uh by improving uh also the quality uh by supporting them on data management and mapping um mapping needs uh we were
Set up in 2006 uh so we know have over 15 years of experience in this field and we cover the full IM chain and IM stands for information management uh so this means that we can help organization in defining the data needs uh collecting structuring and storing data more efficiently uh also
Make data available for visualization uh analyzing and sharing purposes and we also do the last step which is ensuring um the retention archiving and uh destruction of the data at the end uh of its life cycle um we can organize our activities in like three main type of
Support um so operational and strategic support um which can take different forms uh for example we can produce static or dynamic Maps dashboard uh to visualize any kind of um data set um and these products can help organization in better coordinate their work uh on the ground uh evaluate the impact uh and
Also take uh informed decision on the project uh so this is about mapping but we also can help organization in in the data collection phase uh to build surveys um database or also improve their monitoring and and evaluation strategy um the second type of support is about trainings so we provide quite a
Lot of uh trainings this can come from uh really basic awareness uh raising session to advance um more technical trainings let’s say um it can be on a wide range of topics such as JS mapping uh but also mobile data collection data analysis uh reponsible data practices Etc and those trainings
Can take place online but also in headquarters or also in the field and really try to tailor uh our trainings to to our partner’s needs so for example we can adapt exercises to participant profiles and the last uh type of uh support is um that we really work on
Reinforcing um the sector by improving practices on mapping and data management uh so this means that we want our partners to be more autonomous so yeah it’s part of our job and so we do it through different kind of activities for example we we developed a website more
Than one year ago now uh which is the IM am resource portal so which is uh a website accessible to anyone but really dedicated uh mostly for humanitarian and Development actors where they can find free resources uh tutorials but also materials and tools um so that they can
Learn and improve the knowledge on mapping uh and data management practices um in addition to that we also uh organize some free webinars um here and there and finally every two years we have like a big event for us which is the G Forum uh which is one of the only
Events in Europe focusing on uh information and data management in the humanitarian sector and it’s organized in sh in for two years and uh yeah maybe just to finish on on our presentation uh yeah the partners we work with we really insist on the fact that we present our work as
A collaborative work we really work with our partners um and and so we we work for several years now with met Frontier also the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees map action action against hunger term UNICEF uh also the open suit map communities so yeah many organization and we are part
Also of the H2 Network um which is um a network of organization that brings support to other human organization okay thank you so much for your answer uh I think at tsf here we work also with open street map uh in the context of our Madagascar Mission so yeah it’s it’s
Really interesting um and another question that I had is that in your experience uh in which areas is there the great greatest need for digital mapping and data yeah um whatever the type of humans are in crisis uh be natural disasters such as floodings or earthquake or also population displacement link to arm
Conflicts or um epidemics the location is always a recurring question um for everyone and so JS and mapping can be useful in many areas of the humanitarian sectors for yeah many activities logistic um epidemiology uh water hygiene and sanitation uh this can be really used as a decisionmaking tool uh
For example to decide where to set up some infrastructures like latrines water points antennas uh based on geographical criteria but also on um population distribution um so yeah this is really useful in in many many sectors but at our level as an H2 organization we support many organization and many
Crisis but those for which we see the most impact um are the natural disaster I would say um uh because these are really extreme events um most of the times very localized um and with impact both on people and infrastructures and infrastructures are easily mapped
Features for us um so it also it’s a bit more easy for JS purpose uh but also the infrastructures have strong impact on NOS and on their logistic in the field um so in this complex context um GIS and remote sensing can really quickly provide um data and special analysis on
The impacted areas and then answer to many questions such as where are the affected people how to reach them what are the constraints in the fields like logistical constraints security constraints Etc um and recently we have some examples of project that we had um on on this natural disaster type of Crisis so
For a few years now we have uh an emergency hotline with uh Med Frontier for example uh for which we provide support in the first hours of such um emergency uh and so we provide maps to Fields teams so that they can better assess the situation on the
Ground so in the past week we we did some some maps for uh areas in Morocco and also in Libya after the earthquake and the floodings and so the first map produced were reference map to yeah better understand the impact it area um one year ago we also work with um action
Against uh hunger um also to try to identify infrastructures impacted by floodings after the Bai cyclone in Madagascar um and so for this we we crossed different information like flooded areas coming from satellite imageries generated by unitar and infrastructure data coming from open street map like building buildings roads
And bridges and by Crossing this two information who were able to highlight impacted infrastructures and then action against hunger to then adapt the answer also to to the situation and I would say that unfortunately we know that this kind of events will probably occur more frequently uh linked to climate change
And so we also try now not to be only in the response phase but also being in preparedness um phase and injs being in the preparedness phase mean mean mainly um working on data because without data we cannot really work um our support to organization is really limited with no
Data and so for example we hit a project with uh the gis so the German um development Agency for a project on adaptation to climate change in rural Tajikistan and so the main objective of the project was not only to produce Maps but really to create data and make it
Accessible so that if needs be in case of of a crisis then the data will will be available to antip anticipate and plan uh the answer in a better way okay thank you for that answer it’s yeah I think our action would be very very difficult if we did not have access
To these types of maps and to know where the affected areas are and what has been the hardest hit uh so it’s it’s really important I I know that tsf was in Bat as well um and yeah to to know where to go and typically the hardest hit Area tend to
Also have been hit quite hard in the Telecommunications uh obviously uh area as well so yeah I think it’s really important at least in our experience to r on those kinds of uh surfaces and Maps um so you mentioned climate change you mentioned uh natural disasters um is this are there the main
Challenges that you face or what are the main challenges that you face in your missions yeah the main challenges is really data um in a work because as I quickly said before the data is really the basis for G and mapping this means that without data there is no map
Basically um and so yeah link to that we can face um various type of problems uh the first one is that uh is about the existence of data so it has improved quite a lot in the past year but we still work on on many areas that we can
Call like blank areas where there is no or little data available and in this case this means that we have to create the data this can be done uh through different ways using remote sensing processes um and it’s improved also with artificial intelligence in the past
Years uh we can also do it using Crow sourcing so back again to open street map so this this is uh for those who doesn’t know a bit like the Wikipedia of maps and it’s based on a a huge community of volunteers around the world that contribute and and create data
Digitize roads Rivers Etc uh all over the world um and so yeah this this allows to this remote process allows to create uh data on large area and also to overcome constraints uh like logistical constraints or security constraints but we also need the field data collection it’s essential because from remote from
Satellite imy we don’t know if a building is a school is a health center Etc so the field is still needed for this and for complex data such as health zone or health area which is really um necessary for everything linked to to health um um
Answers um so this is about existence of data and then there is everything linked to data quality uh because when the data exists sometimes it’s uh poor quality partial or not up toate and so this is also a big challenge for us to make sure that the data we use for our operational
Mapping uh will not bring some risk uh if it’s used uh for operational purpose in the field um so it’s yeah it’s also part of a job to clean and make sure that data is usable uh so for non-js people it sometimes looks like a detail
Uh but for example if we get like reversed GPS coordinates it can bring some errors um missing identifiers things like this so it can look like a detail but for us it’s really time consuming to do this um and so in kind in the context of an emergency it’s like
L hours uh in cleaning data so fortunately we are not the only one to do so so so there are other organization involved in Gs in the humanarian sector and that contributes to to this cleaning and sharing back data to sharing platform such as um humanitarian Deb
Exchange or open street map again and so linked to that I would say that our last challenge maybe is to educate our partners uh make sure that as we are not everywhere in the field uh we also need to to learn them how to correctly collect and manage data so that when we
Get data from them it’s the best um let’s say most cleanest possible so that we can use them more easily uh so yeah it’s as I mentioned in our type of support really reinforcing the sector is is a key activity for us um to to be able to also as better provider support
To this organization okay yeah I understand completely the the kind of problems that you I understand better at at least I didn’t consider that but it seems obvious um and the last question that I had for you today uh was that at tsf we feel that Tech digital technology is
Increasingly present in the world we have you know uh digital inclusion programs we obviously work a lot with connectivity uh but so we we can sorry we can see firsthand that communities do not always have have access um particularly in terms of knowledge of KN how um to tools adapted
To their problems uh how do you see this issue in your work yeah that’s true that the there are people or users that we we try to involve in our project sometimes don’t have uh access to tools that are really fitting the needs or adapted to
The knowledge and so we really try in our daily work work um to make sure that the tools you propose are really based on needs so it’s the first stage that we do in our project to do like a really need assessment to make sure that the solution we will propose
Then fit it um and also to involve uh from the very beginning in our project users but also communities uh to make sure that yeah it works in the full environment uh and so for that we also have in addition to our technical approach we also have another approach
Which relies on low Tech solution open source open data and also uh participatory methodologies um so the the one on low Tech is really JS can be seen as a complicate um technology that really requires uh Advanced skills but more and more for few years now there are other
Tools that uh that comes and that does not require this Advance skill so uh it can be used really by beginners uh to collect to analyze visualize data they can create static or dynamic Maps quite easily so we also try to promote these tools uh so it’s about
Subjective mapping Workshop uh F paper based data collection or um web mapping tools for beginners uh such as umap or Google GTO um so this is for the low Tech then we also rely on open data to make sure that then everyone can use the dat data so again it’s about open street
Map mainly we use it in our project but also at the end of a project when there is data creation or data update we try to to push to our partner to make sure that they will share the information that was created back to open street map
So that then it can be used for everyone uh and we also contribute to this project by organizing regular map aons and this is our um um collaborative mapping workshops uh during which volunteers are together to map a specific area and so for example recently we we organized map aens on
Marocco um areas after the earthquake um and then the last um last aspect is on participatory uh approach and this is really based more on communities not only on organization we work with but also on communities to which project are dedicated to uh to make sure that they are involved in the
Project process and that uh we also rely on the knowledge on the expertise of the territory and so that they will became actors uh in the in the food process so maybe as a conclusion we can yeah just say that relying on trainings um reinforcing the sector and using also
This approach of flow Tech open data Etc we really try to make sure that organization and communities uh can really take ownership of the solution that we put in place uh without skills limitation and that uh at the end we just ensure that the project will uh be more
Sustainable that’s a great way to end thank you so much thanks uh thank you very much for your time and I hope to speak to you another time as well thanks