<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif;font-size:12pt"><div>I receive an inquiry from a colleague at the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs on the current state of OSM in Africa,<br>and I wrote up this brief survey in response. For certain many cool activities are missing, so please fill in the blanks.<br><br>The results will be shared with UNOOSA directly and blogged.<br><br>Cheers<br>Mikel<br><br><br><br>OpenStreetMap is growing rapidly across all of Africa. <br>Mapping is spreading through local mappers, mappers on <br>vacation, foreign nationals, and remote mapping using <br>satellite imagery. A recent comparison judged the OSM<br>had the most comprehensive coverage of Africa among<br>web mapping services, especially in cities.<br><br>http://blog.fortiusone.com/2008/12/12/openstreetmap-vs-googleteleatlas-street-coverage/<br><br><br>* Wiki Projects
*<br><br>There are active wiki projects in Algeria, Burkina Faso,<br>Burundi, Cameroon, Congo-Kinshasa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana,<br>Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa,<br>Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia .. and other places no doubt.<br><br>http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Category:Africa<br><br>Particularly interesting is a project to map the entire Nile.<br><br>http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Nile<br><br><br>* UN *<br><br>Bo Robert Pederson of UNICEF has been informally mapping<br>Accra and Nairobi to comprehensive levels, and will be<br>investigating bringing OSM more directly into UNICEF's<br>activities. There's strong interest in East Africa in<br>OSM as a component of the EA-SDI.<br><br>In cooperation with the UNJLC, Neil Penman and other <br>volunteers from IBM importing UN data sets for Southern<br>Sudan into OSM. We continue to explore opportunies for<br>collaboration there.<br><br><br>* Conferences and Mapping
Parties *<br><br>In September 2008, the FOSS4G conference was held in<br>Cape Town. Open Geographic Data and OpenStreetMap emerged<br>as main themes of the conference. Very successful mapping<br>parties were held in conjunction, including mapping in<br>townships.<br><br>http://porcupinealley.com/entries/2008/oct/09/township-mapping/<br>http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenMappingAfrica2008<br><br>Local mappers in Cape Town recently negotiated the release of<br>all street data held by the Cape Town metropolitan region,<br>to supplement the already stellar OSM coverage there.<br>This link is a quick rendering of the newly freed data.<br><br>http://adrian.frith.co.za/slippymap/<br><br><br>In July 2008, Wikimania (the Wikipedia conference) was<br>held at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt. OSM was presented<br>to great reception. A mapping party was held in Cairo, and<br>over the last six months Egypt's maps have grown extremely<br>rapidly.<br><br><br>*
2009 *<br><br>Already a strong start to 2009, with new initiatives to promote<br>and use OpenStreetMap in Africa.<br><br>DC Based technology consultants Development Seed have active<br>humanitarian mapping projects using OSM in Zimbabwe, Somalia,<br>and the DRC; And they are seeking interns to help with the <br>effort.<br><br>http://www.developmentseed.org/blog/2009/jan/15/developing-countries-mapped-good-detail-open-street-map<br>http://www.developmentseed.org/blog/2009/jan/16/spring-2009-gis-humanitarian-relief-team<br><br><br>The OpenStreetMap Foundation will be distributing donated GPS <br>units to mappers in developing countries.<br><br>http://foundation.openstreetmap.org/gpstogo/<br><br><br>Not yet formally announced, the "Mappers Without Borders" project<br>will be providing OSM mapping assistance to humanitarian response <br>and development projects, particularly in Africa. (As a still <br>informal entity, we've recently been active in mapping
the Gaza<br>Strip.)<br></div></div></body></html>