[HOT] Mali - Accessing and using data from the Malian Geographic Institute

Vincent Dawans dawansv at gmail.com
Wed Apr 1 23:51:03 UTC 2020


Hi,

I have been working with a local NGO in Mali for about 10 years, in the
Kayes region (west side of the country). Over the years we have added to
openstreetmap the names of the villages we work in based on local knowledge.

About a year ago I became aware of a mapping effort by the French
Geographic Institute that remapped the country from 2012 to 2016.  This was
funded by the European Development Fund (EDF). The end result
produced printed maps at 1/200000 with quite a bit of details, with a scan
available online at http://www.igm-mali.ml/Visionneuse/

There is a LOT of detailed information here, including the localization and
names of villages across the country, many of which are not currently on
openstreetmap. Also there is a lot of details on rivers, etc. It is
actually quite impressive. Unfortunately the web interface only allows to
explore the map and see the underlying data one object at a time (by
selecting specific layers for villages for instance). The main website has
a link to a “geocatalogue” from which data could arguably be downloaded but
unfortunately the side doesn’t load. http://www.igm-mali.ml/geocatalogue/

There is a presentation (in French) of the project on the website of the
French Geographic Institute:
https://www.ignfi.fr/fr/portfolio-item/cartographie-mali/

I have contacted the people from the French Geographic Institute but they
told me the project is closed and all the data is with their Malian
counterpart. Since the “geocatalogue” is no longer online (probably for
technical reasons), I suspect it will be a challenge to get accessed to
that data. Considering the work was funded with public money (EDF), I am
thinking maybe it was published somewhere else? I looked on
https://data.humdata.org/ and it is not there. I will keep looking...

I can tell you that locally people do not even really know that these maps
exist. Some paper maps might have been printed and distributed in Bamako,
but it is not the best way to disseminate that information in the rest of
the country. Openstreetmap is definitely better for that. It is a shame
that all that work was done and barely used. Still I will try to have my
Malian colleagues contact their local Geographic Institute but I know it is
going to be a slow process.

Is anybody in the HOT community aware of that mapping effort that took
place in Mali? Is it typical for that kind of publicly funded project to
NOT share their data with the HOT community?

Still the data is available “manually” from
http://www.igm-mali.ml/Visionneuse/ (as long as the site is up). What it
not clear to me is whether I can legally use that data to update
openstreetmap manually. Considering this was funded with public money,
would the information be considered public domain?

Any help/pointers is appreciated since mapping is not my main area of
expertise.

Sincerely,

Vincent Dawans
Senior Technical Advisor
Virtue Ventures
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