Open source tools and Open data are leveraged to support our work with limited resources available to provide standard and quality work. We work with a community model approach to provide opportunities to the local talent.
We provide geospatial support in times of disasters through imapct assessment for informed decission making by response agencies.
Project reporting, monitoring and evaluation for fundraizing, impact assessment is key. We provide this service with the application of GIS and open source tools.
We deploy mobile data collection techniques in different contexts that support research in regards to data collection using open source tools such as Open Data kit, Kobotoolbox, among others.
Explore below our works in contexts of refugees, hosting communities, health industry, sustainable cities, financial inclusion, disaster preparedness and response, humanitarian response support, tourism exploration, monitoring and evaluation.
Bat roasts mapping in Semuliki National Park.
Community participatory mapping in Bundibugyo District.
Enumerators capacity growth training in Bundibugyo district on mobile data collection.
Data collection in Semuliki National Park.
Bat roast in a palm tree.
HOT is part of the global consortium STOP Spill over that is engaging local and national partners across multiple countries to develop initiatives that can contribute to cartelling the likelihood of zoonotic diseases spreading from animals to human beings.
In Uganda, the STOPS team is working in and around communities close to National game parks and reserves especially in the district of Bundibugyo. With the Semuliki National Park in the North and Rwenzori National Park in the South, Bundibugyo district is built between two very biopic national parks with a variety of wildlife moving across. The Population and economic activity within the district is also on the rise with over 80% of the population relying on agriculture to have an income.This brings about an increase in wildlife and human interactions especially in the rural settings of the district.
For this project, OSM Uganda (Sub-Contracted by HOT) was to support the consortium to understand the spatial interactions between bats and humans in the hot spot targets. This involved mapping all major human infrastructure interactions like schools, health centers, playgrounds, gardens, caves, tourist sites, roads, offices and homes. Major bat nesting areas in and around the interaction sites was also mapped under this project with the guidance and support of the STOPS country Team.
The data collected was then used to create map products that will assist the STOPS team have an informed understanding of the human and bat interaction in the 3 Sub Counties of Bundibugyo district.
Under this assignment, OpenStreetMap Uganda, subcontracted by HOT, worked on the data collection and validation exercise of infrastructure in Bundibugyo district. This included collection of all human infrastructure interaction interfaces (point of interest including schools, health facilities, agricultural gardens, businesses etc) with Bats in the 3 hotspot sub-counties (Harugale, Ntandi TC, Burundo) in Bundibugyo district.
OSM Uganda further mapped the other 17 sub-counties to provide up-to-date maps to the communities of Bundibugyo district and its leadership to support informed planning decisions for the district.
Furthermore,
Uganda has a high youth population. Digital literacy has become an essential skill for young people to possess in today's society. However, many students in rural areas of Uganda lack access to the necessary tools and resources to develop their digital skills. This is where OpenStreetMap Uganda's proposed project comes in, aimed at promoting digital literacy in Uganda through geospatial mapping and leveraging the existing pool of PC-Laptops.
The project aimed to address the lack of access to ICT tools and resources which is a primary challenge in fostering quality education, especially in rural areas. The project aimed to address this challenge by providing ICT tools and learning materials to schools through a shared basis model combined with applying geospatial learning techniques.
The activities to achieve the project objectives included:-
Reliable demand estimation is a key parameter to electrification planning as well as the prioritization and design of access programs to promote the productive use of energy (Banerjee et al, 2017). Demand estimation analytics can help scale up the efforts to stimulate the productive use of electricity in the agriculture sector. Prioritizing electrification by considering areas with existing or potentially high levels of agricultural production and related energy demand may help,
OpenStreetMap Uganda in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities (MOTWA) worked on the development of Uganda Tourism Guide for northern Uganda. This included mapping of lodging facilities, and other vital service areas that affect the tourism sector such as Hotels, Banks, Shopping centres, tourism sites.
The Ugandan Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE) in collaboration with the private sector, civil society organizations, government agencies and other stakeholders with support from Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) under the Natural Resources Stewardship Programme (NatuReS) are co-initiating and implementing the Greater Kampala Integrated Flood Resilience Partnership for flood resilience in the metropolitan area.
The overall objective of the Greater Kampala Integrated Flood Resilience Partnership is to promote investment in blue-green and innovative grey infrastructure, and inclusive solutions in up to two (2) sub/ micro -catchments in GKMA for improved urban resilience to flooding and enhanced socio-economic development in GKMA. Thus, specifically the partnership is aimed at:
Overall, the partnership is intended to contribute to: Safeguarding jobs and investments through measurable reduction of damages caused by flooding within specific locations within GKMA; Strengthening the evidence base on optimization pathways to inform the integration of blue-green and innovative grey infrastructure solutions for flood resilience in an urban setting; Empowering communities for flood resilience through improved capacities of private, public, and civil society actors in mainstreaming and implementing flood resilience actions; Demonstrating collective and inclusive (private, public, and civil society) planning and investment in flood resilience and ensuring measurable reduction of solid waste in stormwater drainage channels within GKMA.
With the wide network of volunteers across Uganda, OpenStreetMap Uganda collaborated with Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and Field Ready (Supporting Frontliners for COVID-19 Response Project) on mapping manufacturers'capabilities to promote local manufacturing. The project focus was specific for production of PPEs. The team at OpenStreetMap Uganda proposed to map manufacturing capabilities in other sectors such as construction materials, agricultural machinery, and bottling companies. Mapping local manufacturing companies will help to further promote local purchase of locally manufactured goods, because people in Uganda and Africa at large companies tend to import goods from outside the country. This Award was to support continuation of the manufacturer’s capabilities mapping.
OpenStreetMap Uganda geospatially mapped manufacturers capabilities around Kampala industrial Area, Namanve Industrial Park and other areas around Kampala and Greater Kampala. During this data collection exercise we targeted large, medium and small scale manufacturing facilities in order to boost local manufacturing and supply. We were able to collect data from over 400 manufacturers.
The project aimed at mapping out different manufacturers to determine their capabilities based on their equipment, inputs and number of products produced per day. The data features included:-
The project is a part of the Somalia Urban Resilience Project Phase II (SURP-II) program, supported by the World Bank and the Federal Government of Somalia.
Solid Waste Mapping in Mogadishu seeks to analyze the current Solid Waste Management systems in the city and identify key challenges and means to tackle them, and subsequently pilot activities to improve collection and disposal in project-supported areas. The main objective of this project is to build local capacity to develop accurate, up-to-date information and insights that can support real-time decision-making with regard to solid waste management.
OpenStreetMap Uganda collaborated with OpenStreetMap Somalia to digitize the city's buildings, roads and other amenities of Mogadishu. Tools that included JOSM, HOTOSM Tasking Manager, Satellite Imagery were utilized on the project.
The DRC (Danish Refugee Council) GIS Dashboard is an initiative engineered under Northern Uganda Resilience Initiative (NURI) programme Which is one of the three development engagements under the Denmark Uganda Country programme 2018- 2022.
On the program, OpenStreetMap Uganda collaborated with Danish Refugee Council (DRC) to visualize the NURI project with the application of geospatial techniques to produce a web map and an atlas.
The objective of NURI is being achieved through these strategic inventions:
This toolkit is a product of the review of the literature and a qualitative study about what trust in official statistics means and how it should be measured. The study was undertaken by OpenStreetMap Uganda and Makerere University and was funded by Paris 21.
The meaning of trust in official statistics and how to measure trust in official statistics from the literature is spelled out in chapter one of the report. Chapter two describes the methodology used to collect and analyze data for the qualitative study to generate how trust in official statistics is understood and measured in Uganda. How trust in official statistics is defined and measured in Uganda is explained. Also, in chapter three the tools for measuring trust in official statistics was developed and presented. Summary and recommendations are discussed in chapter four of the report.
The major objective of this work was to develop a toolkit to measure trust in official statistics and Trust in institutions that produce statistical products. The specific study objectives inlcuded:-
The measurement of trust in official statistics and in institutions producing statistics should be done frequently over a defined period of time.
The strategy should clearly spell out how trust levels will be measured, behaviors and actions to be changed, the resources required, and the time frame.
Crop type mapping during the first growing season. To support the ad-hoc baseline of crop monitoring, Uganda being one of the countries selected as a case study ground, OpenStreetMap Uganda was required to make field visits to the selected areas of interest and map crop type and other land uses identified in these parcels.
The activities were covered in the months of May through to Mid July with a number of obstacles revolving around the pandemic COVID-19. A number of methodologies were deployed to achieve the success of the project.Tools deployed in the field included OpenDataKit, Kobotoolbox Server and excel spreadsheet. Means of transport used included a ferry to cross River Nile, Boda Bodas (Motorcycle), and Cars. Visualization softwares such as QGIS, Umap, and Google Data Studio were utilized to monitor progress and report on the field work.
In July 2020, 15 municipalities in Uganda attained city status as a result of the ever-increasing population due to rural-to-urban migration. The new cities lack up-to-date geospatial information, limiting the effective extension and monitoring of services and settlement across these new cities. Information about road conditions, garbage collection, environmental degradation, and adherence to physical plans is not readily available to the city planners.
OpenStreetMap Uganda built upon its existing remote mapping efforts in the ongoing “mapping of the new cities initiative” by engaging the YouthMapper chapters and the general OSM community in a nationwide Mapillary campaign to generate over 100,000 new street-level images. These used to add more detailed road information to OpenStreetMap, such as data about street lights, road conditions, building heights, building materials and business information, that will be shared and used by the Ministry of Lands and city authorities to plan and monitor the new cities more effectively.
OpenStreetMapUganda in collaboration with OpenGIS Uganda worked with Noble Farms Uganda Limited, private agricultural training and inputs provider to introduce open mapping GIS tools and technology to improve efficiency in their work.
Noble Farms Uganda Limited provides farmers with inputs that include seeds, agricultural machinery like tractors, and training on post-harvesting. In order to effectively plan and target farmers' needs, Noble Farms with support from OSM Uganda and OpenGIS Uganda embarked on setting up a farmer profile and needs a platform.
The Farmer profile platform is a low-cost GIS platform that allows Noble farms to easily locate and monitor their farmers as well as identify their needs early enough. This allows stock the adequate amounts of seeds and tools for the various agricultural seasons. The farmer profile platform also allows Noble farms to plan for effective delivery, maintenance, and monitoring of the agricultural equipment supplied and hired.
Farmers in remote and rural areas of Uganda face a huge challenge accessing quality seeds and agricultural inputs, the farmer profile platform in many cases eases the identification of farmers and allow easy location and tracking of farmers for noble farms Uganda ltd and other agricultural extension services providers to supply good quality seeds and agricultural inputs, this also in turn helps improve the farmer’s harvests and crop output.
I learned that we can do anything, but we can't do everything... at least not at the same time. So think of your priorities not in terms of what activities you do, but when you do them. Timing is everything.
OpenStreetMap Uganda collaborated with Youth Mappers at Makerere University, Bodaboda (Motorcyclists) and Kampala Capital City Authority(KCCA) officials to map out garbage collection points and routes in the city with an aim of using citizen generated data to increase Kampala’s profile as a Smart City.
The teams mapped garbage sites across the five divisions that make up Kampala City utilising the open source tools such as Open Data Kit (ODK) and Open Map Kit (OMK), JOSM, to collect and upload data to OpenStreetMap.
Amenity | Central | Nakawa | Makindye | Kawempe | Rubaga |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Recycling | 138 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 2 |
Waste Basket | 19 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 13 |
Waste Disposal | 178 | 7 | 217 | 3 | 45 |
Waste Transfer Station | 6 | 5 | 0 | 13 | 1 |
Illegal Dumping Sites | 83 | 305 | 165 | 408 | 398 |
In 2020, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) initiated the Uganda Domestic Resource Mobilization for Development (DRM4D) activity to support the Government of Uganda fast track and monitor its journey to self-reliance and increase domestic spending on health, education, agriculture, and other public services. The project commenced on January 21, 2020 and is expected to run through January 20, 2025.
The Domestic Revenue Mobilization for Development (DRM4D) Activity is designed to support improvements in revenue mobilization to fast-track Uganda’s journey to self-reliance and increase domestic spending on health, education, agriculture, and other public sector expenditure. The DRM4D Activity will build on previous initiatives in Local Government Revenue improvement by other development partners.
DRM4D, and other development partners came together to support efforts leading to thecomprehensive digitization of revenue processes to enhance data integrity, revenue management, administration, and reporting.
In most cities in the world, property tax represents the highest percentage of the sources of revenue and it is where most of them acquire their revenue for development.
In Uganda however, this hasn't been properly explored hence leading to low anticipated revenue collected. This is always due to:-
The main objective of this project is to increase revenue from property tax by conducting computerized property valuation with GIS-enabled property valuation rolls. Knight Frank’s goal will be to ensure that the entire assignment is executed in accordance with the client’s requirements as stipulated in the terms of reference, in a timely and cost-effective manner. The specific objectives for the assignment included;-
OpenStreetMap Uganda in collaboration with Elevate, conducted the national mapping and survey of 23 Core Primary Teacher’s Colleges and 539 Coordinating Centers and Tutors across Uganda.OSM Uganda main objectives for this program included:-
The features that were mapped on this project included:-
With support from the Response Innovation Lab and Save the Children, HOT and MapUganda carried out a project across Bidibidi Refugee Settlement in northern Uganda to better understand the state of energy-saving solutions available to refugees in the settlement as well as relevant market trends and challenges associated with accessing and purchasing these solutions.
In collaboration with refugees and host community members in Bidibidi, HOT and MapUganda led extensive data collection activities, gathering information from energy-saving solution retailers about where they purchased their products from, what their available stock consisted of, the biggest challenges they faced in selling these products to the refugee and host populations and much more.
Upon completion of the data collection exercise, the information was analyzed and compiled into maps and graphs to support a better understanding of the accessibility and availability associated with purchasing energy-saving solutions in the settlement. Information products and raw data were shared with the AMPERE consortium - a group of implementing partners working to enhance access and adoption of energy-saving solutions across the settlement - to support more targeted efforts in enhancing clean energy product use, linking potential customers with the clean energy market and increasing awareness of such products amongst refugees and respective host community members.
I learned that we can do anything, but we can't do everything... at least not at the same time. So think of your priorities not in terms of what activities you do, but when you do them. Timing is everything.
I learned that we can do anything, but we can't do everything... at least not at the same time. So think of your priorities not in terms of what activities you do, but when you do them. Timing is everything.
The general objective of the training was to train Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) officers how to fly, capture, process and analyse the images to respond to disaster using drones.
For efficiency OpenStreetMap Uganda (under Uganda flying labs) was exempted from flying at altitude above 400m above the ground.The flights were conducted in accordance with FAA standards and all the flights were carried out below 400 feet.
An Area of not more than 10 Sqkm was surveyed in a village identified by UNDP officials. The core purpose was to train participants on how to capture images using drones while carrying out automatic flights.The participants were introduced to drone mission planning using the Pix4D. The drone Pre planning checklists, Meteorology and Aerodynamics were among the topics that were discussed in the theory session. The participants then went for the field drone flying session. Each participant planned for a mission, captured the images of the areas of their missions, with their flight altitude between 70m to 100m above the ground. All the missions were double grid missions and automatic flights so that each participant could capture a regular area of around 250 m by 250 m. This was to ensure that the most appropriate resolution was acquired from the drone survey.
The aerial images were captured at 80% standard overlap. The participants also repeated the session of assembling a drone and disassembling before and after executing the mission plan respectively. The images were then extracted by the pilots and shared with the participants on the day for the image analysis.
In conclusion there exists significant justifications for drone deploy in risk analysis and humanitarian response in each country, although the specific reasons will vary by country and project. From the training, the participants were able to identify that the general drone regulations in the country are still lacking making the use of the technology be at stake. Therefore, more attention must be given to the regulations of drones and must be followed by any pilot. It was widely accepted in the training that there is a strong need for more and better adaptive and diagnostic practice in flying drones for the participants to deploy drones effectively for their humanitarian response. In summary, the training as a whole was a success in a way that all participant’s expectations were met.
Timely provision of medical and non-medical supplies is critical for COVID-19 response, and the need to remember the undesirable demands to protect oneself from the disease has prompted the reinvention of risk communication with targeted messaging like the “Tonsemberera (Do not come close to me) campaign.” All over the world, the outbreak prompted the application of tools, such as digital and geospatial technology, for efficient responses, to enable the quick identification and isolation of infected individuals or families while also ensuring the efficient supply of daily needs such as food, especially among those that were gravely affected by the pandemic.
OpenStreetMap is one such platform that enables building tools and obtaining demographics without needing complex techniques. With the identification of buildings, access roads, and amenities, responders gain easy access to information, and so the planning and delivery of support services become more efficient.
Unfortunately, the most affected areas in Uganda were the border districts that only existed as blank spots on OpenStreetMap. MapUganda, together with Geo YouthMapppers, came forward through the HOT Microgrant program to support the availability of data for the planning and actions of government and field responders, such as the Ugandan Red Cross. The parties embarked on mapping buildings, roads, and identifiable amenities for porous border entry points to help create detailed maps to support and retool the Ugandan Red Cross Society and Ministry of Health surveillance efforts against the spread of the pandemic.
In spite of the lockdown of the airport in March and the strict monitoring and testing at official borders entry points, COVID-19 transmission still found its way into the country through the porous border points, carried by people entering from the neighboring countries of Kenya, Congo, and Tanzania. With support from a Rapid Response Microgrant, students and community members dedicated a piece of their time every day to contribute to the remote mapping of 27 border towns.
A series of trainings and work sessions using different tools, such as JOSM, ID Editor, Tasking Manager, Quantum GIS, Umap platform, were used to remotely prepare the data and information for the communities at the frontline of the awareness and risk communications against the pandemic.
Among all the 27 border towns, Kyotera and Busia had the highest number of buildings. The access roads are primarily distributed across Kyotera, Elegu, Busia, Mutukula, and Moyo border towns, with Kyotera having the highest number of access roads. This attributes to the dense population of the town and puts its population at risk of an outbreak if there is a community infection within the area.
For further insights, please see these resource:
We appreciate the support and facilitation that HOT has rendered to us, from funding to guidance, throughout the entire project, and we encourage other communities to apply for HOT Microgrants and make a difference through mapping.
We leverage the experience of the youth with over 40 years combination in different sectors and backgrounds which contribute to our vision and mission as we solve our communities challenges using geospatial opensource technologies.
Allan Mbabani has over 7 years of experience working in the NGO space and geospatial technologies for community development.
Ronald has over 10 years working in the NGO and financial spaces. Deploying strategic approaches to community development.
Over 7,000 community members to the OpenStreetMap community in a space of 2 years.Jemimah has also a background in quantity surveying from Makerere University.
OpenStreetMap Uganda (MapUganda) is a registered NGO working across Uganda, promoting community mapping, GIS awareness, actively contributing open datasets, and building a network of enthusiastic community mappers in Uganda. MapUganda contributes its mapping to the OpenStreetMap platform. MapUganda has been operating since 2012 and has worked with international organizations that include the World Bank and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) to execute data collection, capacity building, and information systems strengthening in Uganda.
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"Had a great meeting with OSM Uganda in Kampala, discussing challenges and gaps in mapping I experienced during our Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) health assessment in Karamoja. I managed to get them hooked on using Mapswipe, that will help them speed up their mapping in future projects and also make community participation more accessible 🙂"
"We have seen another great mapathon happening the past weekend. I just want to really thank you for that!! It is now ready for our MSF teams to use for any of their interventions. For all of our MSF activities in the region we will now have a better view where communities are exactly living."
"I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone here contributing anything on the mapping exercise. I work with Ministry of Health but all our coordinates that are accurate are obtained from OpenStreetMap. This is only possible because of your great contribution. I salute you all🙂."
"Making our communities visible to the global village starts with me mapping my village. Let's make geospatially informed decisions for community developments."
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