Tag: South Asia

Planning An Open Cities Mapping Project

This Open Cities guide documents lessons learned from work in South Asia, providing an overview of the design and implementation of a community mapping program. To keep this guide up-to-date and truly open source, the online version of the document is hosted on GitHub welcoming comments and contributions.

The Rise of Local Mapping Communities

In the past few years, there has been a meteoric rise of locally organized OpenStreetMap communities in developing countries working to improve the map in service of sustainable development activities.

Promoting Awareness of OpenStreetMap in Sri Lanka

To date, OpenDRI has engaged effectively with the public sector pushing for adoption of OSM. However, there is still a major gap in engagement with local businesses and tech start-ups that would expand and deepen OSM use and knowledge.

What can you do with a high-resolution population map?

Population density is one of the most important statistics for development efforts across many sectors, and since early 2016 the World Bank has been collaborating with Facebook on evaluating a new source of high-resolution population data that sheds light on previously unmapped populations.

Code for Resilience Problem Statement Workshop

In June of 2016 the OpenDRI Sri Lanka team held a Code for Resilience problem statement workshop at the Disaster Management Center of Sri Lanka with more than 25 representatives from government, media and the private sector in Sri Lanka.

Community Mapping Factsheet

The Community Mapping Factsheet is a glimpse into the OpenDRI efforts to include people who are exposed to hazards in the data creation process.

Surveying Sri Lanka’s Gampaha District

The Gampaha District is an urban and agricultural district located on the Western coast of Sri Lanka just north of Colombo in the Attanagalu Oya River basin. This area is very prone to flooding with important human, material, and financial damages.

More voices mean smarter cities

Creating mechanisms for participation in urban planning can be as traditional as institutionalizing town meetings on zoning issues or as innovative as deploying digital platforms for community mapping. For instance, a number of initiatives, such as the Open Cities Project, illustrate the ways in which citizens can help contribute information to the policymaking process.

Open Cities draws on inputs from a range of groups to “create usable information through community mapping techniques, to build applications and tools that inform decision making, and to develop the networks of trust and social capital necessary for these efforts to become sustainable.” The project informs World Bank investment planning on addressing urban challenges and disaster risk in pilot cities in South Asia.

Harnessing the Power of the Crowd – Reflections Six Months after the Gorkha Earthquake in Nepal

Through the Open Data for Resilience project, The World Bank, GFDRR, and other partners are supporting efforts to map areas at risk before a disaster strikes.

•In the six months following the April 2015 earthquake, OpenStreetMap data for Nepal was accessed by more than 3,300 users using a GFDRR platform that tailored the data for response and recovery.

•Urban areas around the world, including cities in Indonesia, Philippines, Malawi and Bangladesh, are a major focus of mapping efforts.