[Osmf-talk] OSM Uganda Local Chapter application

Janet Chapman j.chapman at tanzdevtrust.org
Fri Nov 27 21:26:21 UTC 2020


I’d like to echo these positive comments, and those from Heather, Douglas and Geoffrey.

It would indeed be an inspiring milestone for many for Uganda to become a Local Chapter.

Best wishes
Janet
Crowd2Map Tanzania

From: Ngumenawe Samson [mailto:ngumenawesamson at gmail.com]
Sent: 27 November 2020 18:48
To: Heather Leson <heatherleson at gmail.com>
Cc: OSMF Talk <osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [Osmf-talk] OSM Uganda Local Chapter application

Dear  Osmf-talk subscribers.
I would like to thank everyone that has really taken the time to make a comment on the OSM Uganda Local Chapter application.
I want to appreciate Craig's comments and I believe we as the MapUganda community and its board can work on to streamline the operations of the organization.
But for the purposes of OSM Local Chapter registration, it's an inspiring milestone that we would like to see successfully completed.
Amending the constitution and incorporating Craig's comments is a gradual process that we can focus on as we move forward.

Regards.

On Fri, Nov 27, 2020 at 9:27 PM Heather Leson <heatherleson at gmail.com<mailto:heatherleson at gmail.com>> wrote:
Dear Geoffrey and Douglas

Thank you for this detail. I applaud an OSM chapter in Uganda. You've been true leaders in the continent. I also thank you for your considerations about what it means for membership and engagement in OSM based on the reality of different communities and governmental bodies.

Keep shining

Heather

On Fri, 27 Nov 2020, 19:07 Douglas Ssebaggala, <erunayo at gmail.com<mailto:erunayo at gmail.com>> wrote:
Thank you Geoffrey, and everyone for all your comments to OSM Uganda's application process.

Additional thanks to Craig Allan, and any other members who are taking the time to review the Constitution, documents, and comments that accompany MapUganda's application.

I will try to be brief and specific to avoid giving you the history of MapUganda when it was being created; here are my 5 cents and comments;

  1.  I agree with finding a neutral/independent person who understands and will openly share here on the list, the "vagaries" of non-profit organisations in Uganda.

     *   It would also be good for the MapUganda current Board to look into the suggested changes by Craig and the OSMF.

  1.  MapUganda has received funding recently from OSMF microgrants<https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Microgrants/Microgrants_2020/Proposal/Mapping_Uganda%27s_New_Cities> in 2020, and during the Open cities<https://opencitiesproject.org/uganda/kampala/> project as an implementing partner in 2018 (It's already a small non-profit organisation)

     *   There are other similar but smaller projects<http://mapuganda.org/projects.html> that MapUganda has carried out in 2019 made possible due to NGO incorporation as OpenStreetMap Uganda in 2017.

  1.    The Local Chapters, and OSMF legal talk mailing lists were contacted<https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/local-chapters/2016-June/000282.html> in June 2016 before using the name "Openstreetmap Uganda" for NGO registration.

     *   From the above exchange on the list, we went ahead to use the name since we were not saying bad things about OSM or intending to make profit off OSM.
     *   The local chapters were a new thing for OSMF, but we had extensive knowledge about OSM in Uganda, and we wanted to grow the OSM Africa and Global OSM community.

  1.  The Ugandan OSM Community started the process of becoming an OSM Local chapter<https://www.mail-archive.com/local-chapters@openstreetmap.org/msg00020.html> in January 2013, but the Local Chapters list was dormant<https://www.mail-archive.com/local-chapters@openstreetmap.org/msg00021.html> during that time.

     *   MapUganda went ahead to work ahead of time and build the above communities: if we had stayed dormant as well, OSM Africa or OSM thematic/Humanitarian organisations<https://www.hotosm.org/updates/2016-03-02_hot_uganda_profile_douglas_ssebaggala> would probably not have carried out current activities with members from Uganda.
     *   The Local Chapters working Group (re)-convened to relaunch<https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Local_Chapters_and_Communities_Working_Group> at the State of the Map in 2018 (this is when former Working Group members were marked inactive), before the new LCCWG being approved by the Board<https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Board/Minutes/2019-12#2019.2FRes31_Approve_relaunch_of_LCWG_as_LCCWG_with_new_mission_statement>

5.    All these activities have happened for several years<http://www.mappingday.com/> - since 2011, and I hope transparency<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Movement_Strategy_Principles#Transparency_&_Accountability> (also see comment 1) among current, future partners and community members will build trust with MapUganda to become a model Chapter, not only in Africa, but in other OSM Communities elsewhere in a few, rather than several years.
Thank you and a great weekend.

Wikimedian in Uganda<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Uganda>
Ssebaggala Douglas | Skype: douglo.m | Twitter: @douglaseru<https://twitter.com/douglaseru> | Mob - Uganda: +256 772 422524


On Fri, Nov 27, 2020 at 5:07 PM Geoffrey Kateregga <kateregga1 at gmail.com<mailto:kateregga1 at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hello everyone,

Thank you for the support and comments on our application to become the second local chapter from Africa that is affiliated to the OSM Foundation.

As OpenStreetMap Uganda, we are using this as a learning process so we can inspire more communities from Africa to get on board and become local chapters as well, so any feedback on our application is highly appreciated.

Local communities in Africa face numerous challenges which I am sure are different from those faced in other parts of the world. We have been a community since 2011, and we got registered in 2017 as a local non-profit organization in Uganda, run by the OpenStreetMap community in Uganda.

With this organization in place, we are able to raise funding to pay for office space, internet, facilitate training for our volunteers, and develop partnerships with government and organizations like Red Cross. We are able to respond to disasters in the country through mapping, working with our volunteers to create map data for the most vulnerable places.

In 2017 we organized State of the Map Africa in Kampala, which has now become a regular event that took place in Abidjan, Ivory Coast in 2019 and is happening in Nairobi, Kenya in 2021. Through this, we are growing continent-wide collaboration across Africa, where OSM communities are working together to grow OpenStreetMap.

What is the incentive for local OSM communities to become Local Chapters? One of the requirements to become a local chapter is to be a registered organization. Sustaining that organization is left to the community to figure out. What kind of support is the foundation and the general community giving to local communities that are rising up. We want to be able to do more, with OpenStreetMap in our countries, there is a gap that we can fill to contribute to development in our countries, we need to engage Government, Businesses and NGOs and encourage/teach them to use OpenStreetMap data, we can only do this when we are an organization that is well organized and is sustainable.

OpenStreetMap Uganda is a non-profit organization, non of the board members directly profits from the organization. We employ a few staff members, to run the operations and different projects. We don’t just want to be a community that does mapping, we were already doing that before we were an organization, we want to do more and create more local impact.

There are many foreign companies across Africa, that come in and do OpenStreetMap related work,  without directly benefiting local OSM communities, we need to change this, we need to develop the capacity of these communities to lead these projects themselves, we want to teach our members' organization development skills, business skills, communications skills, etc, so that when such opportunities come, they can take them on them themselves, and we can only do this if we are a self-sustaining non-profit organization.

Hope this answers some of the questions on why we are structured the way we are as an organization. And we are willing to listen to advice from the community, on how we can have a sustainable organization run by the OSM community, something that will benefit other communities around Africa.


Kind regards,

Geoffrey Kateregga (user: Kateregga1)
Chairman Board, OpenStreetMap Uganda


On Thu, Nov 26, 2020 at 6:07 PM Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org<mailto:frederik at remote.org>> wrote:
Hi,

On 26.11.20 10:46, Blake Girardot wrote:
> OSM Uganda is my idea of a success story.

Sicne you wrote this in reply to Craig Allan's post - just to be very
clear on this point: You see no issues with granting local chapter
status to a commercial organisation with the main chartered purpose of
providing paid services?

Or do you want to say that OSM Uganda is a bona fide nonprofit, and that
it sounds like a commercial organisation is due to the "The vagaries of
Ugandan organizations" that you "do not pretend to understand"?

In the latter case, perhaps we could ask an independent person from
Uganda to judge whether what we have before us sounds like the average
nonprofit in Uganda.

I found Craig's comments rather convincing; I'd rather not give local
chapter status to a commercial GIS consultancy. But I'd be happy to
listen to someone who *does* understand the vagaries of Ugandan
organizations.

Bye
Frederik

--
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org<mailto:frederik at remote.org>  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"

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