❮ Projects page Human Computation Institute

Spatial Analysis Project:

Our project is based on crowdsourcing and open data as a way to support development in rural Tanzania, particularly to reduce gender inequality, prevent gender-based violence, and improve education and health. The project is run by volunteers with no GIS experience, but we realize the power of maps in tackling big problems and wish to expand our reach.

We have the following location-based data available: population density and poverty levels, incidences of female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage, educational achievement and various health aspects. We would like to generate maps to visualize regions or places that have the most immediate needs, allowing us to dedicate our resources to specific places & problems. For example, we are working to reduce the incidence of FGM by manually mapping incidents, and then improving maps of nearby regions on OpenStreetMap to support outreach work in poorly accessible areas & previously unknown settlements.

Data available:

• FGM incidents by location and data for 2016 cutting season
• Open government data of schools, clinics, water points
• Income (poverty) and population data
• Education indicators for different schools
• Data on: maternal health, newborn health, childbearing age, pregnancies and births
• Number of people per clinic/doctor
• Birth and death rates

Maps and Reports that will be created:

• Maps showing number of girls subjected to FGM, rescued, and died by village and region.
• Maps showing incidences of child marriage by village and region.
• Reports on education indicators in different regions, with an ability to reference other factors such as population density, density of schools.
• Maps that allow visualization of areas in a certain region by population density or poverty, with an ability to cross these data.
• Coverage maps regarding health & educational services: populations served by clinics and schools and average distance traveled by users.

How the maps and reports will be used:

They will help to understand the development levels and identify specific needs of different regions, thus allowing us & similar organizations to allocate our resources to the regions with the most immediate needs. More specifically:

• Help plan intervention efforts before and during the cutting season & improve accessibility to rural settlements to better protect girls from FGM, as well as expand understanding and raise awareness of FGM activity.
• Help with need planning by visualizing how accessible clinics and schools are to different populations.
• Help to pin-point & analyze regions where the quality of health or education services should be most urgently improved.
• Help to identify the poorest regions and come up with solutions/development programmes that may best serve the geographical region.
• Help to plan ahead of health and humanitarian crises that are influenced by population density, and allocate resources to areas of need