[HOT] Thoughts on OSM in Africa - ICRC GIS officers

[Frédéric Bonifas]

Hi,

I have just presented OSM to the ICRC (Red Cross) GIS officers today,
so 25 people from all over the world, mainly Africa.
There was a big interest, but also some concerns.

* when they want to evaluate the data, the method they currently use
is to go to osm.org and check what there is currently. At low scale, a
lot of data is therefore missed : villages, small roads tagged as
highway=unclassified or highway=road, etc.
We already have data sources for that, PD maps for example :
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/
In Somalia for example, we have data but it isn't emphasized. A lot of
roads are tagged with highway=road while they are primary roads.

Tagging a road as primary or secondary when it is displayed like this
on CIA maps is a really little effort for us, but it allows everyone
to see clearly that the main roads are already mapped out.

* they already have vector data for their countries, but this is a
"mashup" of a lot of data sources, often copyrighted. It is therefore
not possible to import this data in OSM. Still possible : GPS traces,
points collected on the field

I will try to keep working with them and post back here if I have something new.


Best

-- 
Frédéric Bonifas
+33672652807 skype:fredericbonifas