FortiusOne has been involved in a project to map all the World Bank’s projects. Dubbed “Mapping for Results” it is a collaboration between Development Gateway, AidData and the World Bank. The initial step is to actually map where the projects are taking place. Geocoding is the process of placing information in its geographic place. When you enter an address into a routing application to get directions the process of placing that address on the map is a type of geocoding. The process being utilized in Mapping for Results is far more manual than that though.
A team from College of William and Mary and Brigham Young University have been hard doing this geocoding. They use a variety of sources on the web in an attempt to pinpoint where projects are taking place. I didn’t think it was possible to be more excited about geocoding than I, but after watching this video I think they might be. Where FortiusOne comes into this project is the visualization once the projects have been mapped.
Breaking down aid funding by a variety of geographies and projects it gives a clearer picture of what is being work on where. This can assist in evaluation of the efficacy of various projects and help determine under-served regions. You can see video of some of the resulting visualization in the video below:
6 Responses to Mapping for Results and Transparency
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Hi folks. Great work! I couldn’t agree more about the using of geo-location and mapping as a way of improving transparency and accountability, and explaining the work of an agency such as the World Bank. I have been doing a similar much smaller project with UN-HABITAT. Please keep us updated on your progress.
thanks
Doug
There are many issues in trying to do this kind of work -
One is in how the data on locations is collected in the first place. Often the current tools are lacking, i.e. a paper form or basic text box for location, in which anyone can type anything. So one ends up with typos, non-standard addresses, and any number of things which one cannot address algorithmically via traditional route/address geocoding means, via gazetteer lookups for places of interest, and so on. Further, it may refer to PLSS locations (Section/Township/Range) or miles along a given route, and so on. In some cases, the descriptive location corresponds with polygonal boundaries, not point locations, such as county, state, congressional districts and so on – and we need to broaden our thinking to accomodate this. We need tools, SOPs, and likely policy for dealing with this – I recently talked about this a little on my own blog as well: http://surveying-mapping-gis.blogspot.com/2010/08/locational-data-policy-and-tools.html
Additionally, one may want to look at the process by which grants and other funding is made available – for example, if there are competetive grants, the process itself may give advantage to more affluent communities with grants writers over communities which have less resources for pursuing the grants. One should be aware of the pitfalls – and where there are mismatches and inequities, where funding versus need do not align, then we need to find ways to address these issues.
On another vein, some grants and funding are more broad-based, without specific discrete project locations, but instead may be statewide, and so on – there too, other approaches, such as per-capita or other metrics can be used comparatively versus other communities, however without the more fine and granular geographic component.
But again, the message I stress is that geospatial technology is really the best way to assess whether the money is reaching those areas who need it most, and geospatial approaches should be fundamentally ingrained in grants processes.
Thanks Doug! Indeed, there is a lot of great work being done at the World Bank and we’re excited to be a part of their open data and mapping efforts.
Dave – you’re definitely correct that the real solution is ideally to have location identification happen as close to the source of the data as possible. The data reporter knows the most about the project. The World Bank has specifically been making modifications to their underlying systems to allow for just this source-level reporting of project activities. More on that soon.
And regarding the variety of location identification mechanisms – this is exactly the problem we worked with the FGDC to solve under our Cooperative Agreement Project from last year – and where our GeoCommons Geocoder was developed.
The problem is how to provide very simple mechanisms that allow for users to easily contribute data that links to geographies that are relevant and accurate. The GeoCommons join process is built in and let’s users join to any boundary definitions – and we’ll soon be releasing even more capabilities to make it easier to update and maintain this data.
I completed last fall a mapping training in East Africa with UN-HABITAT, and it is quite amazing how quick the uptake on mapping was. GPS units look like cellphones from one thing, and basically (ok, i am stretching it a bit here) all a cell phone is a GPS unit with a phone attached. UN-HABITAT will be publishing a manual in the next few months which i can post here if interested.
So, I think in the very near future in the developing world there will be low cost (not iphone) level cell phones that map data points. This will begin to address the need for the data to be collected both at source, as well as by community members.
As well, openstreetmaps is doing some fascinating work with “walking” paper maps (you can go here to read about them http://wp.me/pSExV-8O) which require only a scanner. What is exciting is that all this work is being done in slums – mapkibera.org is on such project in Kibera slum in Nairobi – suggesting that it is possible to work with more impoverished communities.
What delineates the ability to use mapping or not is poverty, but more specifically, rural vs urban poverty, as even in Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, they have access to the internet as they are in a city with infrastructure, vs rural communities which might have no access at all. The biggest thing to hit East Africa for example was the arrival of fibre optic cables in Mombasa, which increased the internet speeds there many fold (see this article for more info on this – http://wp.me/pSExV-7w.
Anyways, again, keep up the great work!
Doug, I’d be interested in the manual.
The power of walking-papers is amazing. I’ve been involved with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (http://hot.openstreetmap.org) and we’ve used them extensively in Haiti. I just recently returns from an effort to map the camps within the country and then provide printed maps with in the settlements for all to see.
Key for participating fully in mapping definitely doesn’t have to be internet access. There are various systems that can work offline. FortiusOne has deployed offline instances of our system for use in areas with minimal or no Internet access. Though for updates having bandwidth at some point certainly does help.
As part of the World Bank – IMF Spring Meetings, there will be a session on “Democratizing Development through Open Data” organized by the World Bank and AidInfo. Open Data and innovative visualization such as the Mapping for Results Initiative are a powerful tool for civil society organizations and citizens. These new approaches can increase government responsiveness, transform the way public services are delivered to citizens, and enhance transparency and accountability of development assistance. Open data combined with social media and new technologies have the potential to empower citizens to communicate directly with governments and service providers. The event will take place on: Friday, April 15, 2011, 12:15-2:00 pm. Please join us for the event live online:
http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/event/democratizing-development