South Sudan: Google, World Bank Map Newly Created Nation
By Ben Omondi
JUBA---Just before Southern Sudan gains autonomy from the North in July this year, search engine giant Google and the World Bank have launched an initiative to map the country’s landmarks using expertise from Sudanese diaspora.
The initiative, called a ‘Mapa-thon,’ and which was launched in late April this year, saw more than 60 members of the Southern Sudanese diaspora come together to locate and map schools, hospitals, and other social infrastructure using Google’s mapping platform consisting of Google Earth, Google Map Maker and Google Maps.
During the event, held at the World Bank’s Washington DC office, members of the Sudanese diaspora in US as well as others who have lived and worked in Southern Sudan were engaged and trained on how to use Google Map Maker to contribute their local knowledge of the region to the mapping effort.
“Our hope is that this event and others like it will help build a self-sufficient mapping community that will contribute their local expertise and remain engaged in Southern Sudan over time. This is about shifting the center of gravity from organizations to people, and empowering them to solve their own problems and develop their own solutions using maps,” said World Bank Africa region vice president Obiageli Ezekwesili through a video link from US, stating that today’s technology can empower civil society to collaborate and support the development process.
The mapping exercise is out of the recognition that Southern Sudan is despite being large, a severely under-mapped area. Without geospatial information on basic social infrastructure, it is challenging for the government, civil society and the donor community to visualize plans, see existing infrastructure and select areas where they can work and develop projects.
Having good maps of roads, settlements, buildings and other services is aimed to help stakeholders to evaluate risks and current needs and thereby better target their efforts to support the region’s development process as it prepares for independence.
“Traditionally, you work with cartographic agencies to develop maps that take months or even years to publish. With innovations in geospatial tools and access to local knowledge and data gathered from people who know their communities best, maps can be created in real time that have real value," said World Bank Institute’s Aleem Walji, who is in charge of the Bank's recently launched “Mapping for Results” platform which visualizes World Bank project locations combined with development indicators in more than 79 of the world's poorest countries, including Sudan.
The Mapathon provided training for participants using Google’s online mapping tool, Google Map Maker, and groups sat together to map the regions they know best. Several hundred edits were made to the map of Southern Sudan in four hours by volunteers from the South Sudanese diaspora. Approved edits will then appear live in Google Maps.
“South Sudan is so underdeveloped in many aspects, and technology is one of them. So by mapping South Sudan, this is a step in the right direction. It is also a useful way for the diaspora to connect with our people on the ground,” said Reec Akuak, a US-based South Sudanese small business owner and treasurer of the Southern Sudanese Community, an umbrella organization for the Southern Sudanese diaspora groups in the U.S during the video-conference.
The participants in the event mapped the areas of Southern Sudan that were most familiar to them, with some mapping out Juba, while for others it was their home village or another location.
“Google’s mapping platform – consisting Google Earth, Map Maker and Maps – all use data from one reservoir. The Map Maker is used to create vector content on both Google Maps and Google Earth and is open to users with ‘gmail’ accounts,” said Paul Munene, a geographic specialist from Google Africa office in Nairobi, adding that various users act as moderators verifying content before it can be availed online on Google Maps.
Munene added that apart from South Sudan diaspora, the mapping exercise also involves from geography students from Juba University, non-governmental organizations in Sudan and a number of community mappers.
“We have only mapped less than 5 per cent of what needs to be mapped, including national parks, major roads and rivers, important towns and other key infrastructure,” noted Munene, adding all mapping efforts for Africa are handled from Google Kenya office.
The mapping of Southern Sudan by Google follows similar exercises in Africa, including Kenya where several locations and towns are now featured, with the latest being Korogocho slums in Nairobi which was conducted in a joint effort together wit the community.