[HOT] Fwd: [CrisisMappers] Egypt + Tunisia + Jordan + ?

Sun Jan 30 14:40:18 GMT 2011

Hi there-

I found the below thread in Crisis Mappers about Egypt and Tunisia and
mapping political crisis interesting.
On our side, I think that the answer is just supporting the continuation of
the OSM project in those territories with as always the question about the
level of resources we can invest in this.
Most of the reported actions happening in the heart of the major cities this
can lead to improving the mapping of those cities.
It's unlikely that our classic outreach actions towards vector data will be
successful to bring in good open vector data, perhaps we can get more luck
with Spot on imagery if yahoo and bing can be complemented.
Any thoughts?
Ciao

Nicolas

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: nicolas chavent <nicolas.chavent at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: [CrisisMappers] Egypt + Tunisia + Jordan + ?
To: crisismappers at googlegroups.com

Hi there-

Thanks for those who initiated and contributed to this thread which brings
in the front the key questions that CM as a community has to consider when
it comes to mapping conflicts or complex emergencies.

The below are some thoughts inspired by the situation in Tunisia and Egypt,
I am speaking here only on my name and the below positions are not the one
of HOT.

Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan call for maps by the CM network and I see no
reason why this call shall not be answered. Conflicts or complex emergencies
are in the scope of CM and all the points developed in the above thread
apply to mapping happening in such a context and as such applies also for
mapping in Pakistan or the the on-going mapping ongoing now in South Sudan.
None of those points were raised in those 2 crisis. By mapping Flooding in
Pakistan opens for the same question raised for Tunisia and Egypt, Pakistan
being a complex emergency. The same applies for South Sudan. No questions
raised and on our side an interestting mapping work done or in the making.
Why acting differently in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan or other countries from the
Magrheb/ Mashrek?

Generally,in front of a conflict, CM is expected or has to create open
baseline maps (transportation, hydro, boundary), open humanitarian baseline
maps (warehouses, camps, bladder, mobile clinics) and maps of fluid
situational facts (violence incidents, road blocks, protests, events ...).
Classic mapping techniques and crowd sourced approaches will be mobilized
within our network under openness as our operational paradigm: the crisis
will be mapped by the crowd for the crowd, the crowd being any individual or
group interested/ and or active for the territory struck by the crisis, this
mapping will happen as the result of coordinated or uncoordinated actions by
remote and on-site entities. OSM and ushaidi furnishing 2 paradigms of
baseline and situational mapping by the crowd. The resulting maps are not
going to be perfect, depicting accurately, timely and in a an "objective"
fashion the reality of the crisis. We know from the experience that with the
time and with participation, those maps will be portray ok the reality and
will be usable assets for those on the ground or afar who are working on the
territories hit by the crisis.

Sure mapping political crisis is a complex task (just think about the
enormous academic literature on this subject by academics and practitioners)
with implications, "no undo buttons", where mapping enters into politics.
This did not prevent us from mapping in territories hit by conflicts or
conflict prone (Pakistan and South Sudan). Are we going to have a different
stand on Tunisia and Egypt and wait for digesting this complex and
literature? The value of CM lies in its mix of people belonging to all those
realms (academics, practitioners, social media activists, software
developers etc etc ), an empiricist approach when it comes to learning, did
not we learn from doing over the past years in the many crisis iterations?

My point here is that T, E and any country affected by a crisis deserves
action on our end, that we will not start from nothing in terms of awareness
about what mapping a crisis implies and that we will keep learning and
contributing hopefully in a significant manner to the literature academic
and operational about conflict/ complex emergency mapping by being active in
this field.

The questions ahead of us are more on how CM can respond this call given
that there are for each crisis tech issues and procedures issues for this
and that resources are not infinite.
Is it an objective for this group to ensure at the occurrence of each crisis
the infrastructure for this mapping (baseline maps and situational facts) to
happen with a first remote activation that can be then handed over on the
ground to individuals and groups active throughout the crisis and willing to
maintain it the way that both OSM and USHAIDI (in a more easy context) acted
in Haiti with a hand over to C-OSM.HA (Communaute OpenStreetMap Haiti) and
Noula.

This being said, like some intervening in the thread, I have almost no time
to devote to Tunisia and Egypt, but most happy to support even minmially
those who would stand up and strengthen the existing crowd map efforts
mentioned in the thread.

I'd be also very interested in hearing about a crowd sourced mapping project
to keep track of the political violences in Ivory Coast which is made
necessary by the level of tensions on the ground and the real risk of a
large scale political regional crisis.

I look forward to the continuation of this thread and to any answers or
pointers on Ivory Coast

Thanks and best

Nicolas

On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 4:21 AM, Leesa Astredo <leesaastredo at gmail.com>wrote:

> I feel that as a global community, it is imperative that we get "involved"
> in all issues of the world. Isn't that why we all are here? To inform the
> world? Good, Bad or indifferent. Our "clients" are global. If it affects
> them, it should be addressed by us. IMHO. @viequesbound
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 12:44 PM, John Crowley <bostoncello at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> This comment brings up a very good question for the community: when
>> getting "involved" with conflicts and political movements, what is our
>> stance on neutrality? Does CM get involved in supporting the efforts of a
>> particular side? If so, what effects will such advocacy--or perception of
>> advocacy--have on future efforts on our work in hard places?
>>
>> These are hard questions to be contemplated carefully.
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 9:46 AM, omDesign <omdesign.is at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I think it's well within the mandate of Crisis mappers and the SBTF to
>>> get more involved with the Egyptian and Tunisian upheaval.
>>>
>>> I have seen the http://25jan.crowdmap.com/ Jan 25 crowdmap but with
>>> democracy on the line and likelihood of violence the need and rationale
>>> exists for translation/coordination/ and people first support measures.
>>>
>>> Om
>>>
>>> --
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ______________________________
>>
>> John Crowley
>> Harvard Humanitarian Initiative &
>> National Defense University/Center for Tech and National Security Policy
>> STAR-TIDES initiative (contractor)
>> jcrowley at post.harvard.edu
>> bostoncello at gmail.com
>> mobile: +1 617.784.3663
>> skype: johnrcrowley
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Leesa Astredo
> www.info4disasters.com
>
>
> My blogs
> http://gulfoilspill.blogspot.com/
>
> http://hurricane-2010.blogspot.com/
>
> http://viequesbound4haiti.blogspot.com
>
> http://severeweatherinformation.blogspot.com
>
> twitter at viequesbound @info4disasters
> Skype name: viequesbound
>
>  --
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> To post to this group, send email to crisismappers at googlegroups.com.
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> .
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>

-- 
Nicolas Chavent
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Haiti
Mobile (Haiti): +509 389 583 05
Mobile (France): +33 6 89 45 54 58
Landline (FRA): +33 2 97 26 23 08
Email: nicolas.chavent at gmail.com
Skype: c_nicolas
Twitter: nicolas_chavent

-- 
Nicolas Chavent
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Haiti
Mobile (Haiti): +509 389 583 05
Mobile (France): +33 6 89 45 54 58
Landline (FRA): +33 2 97 26 23 08
Email: nicolas.chavent at gmail.com
Skype: c_nicolas
Twitter: nicolas_chavent
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