Malawi: From late July to late September, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) will carry out a community mapping project in Malawi’s Lower Shire — a large valley in the South whose two districts, Chikwawa and Nsanje — which are the most flood prone areas of the country. The project is funded by the World Bank Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), for which Malawi is one of the nine African priority countries.
The project will complement other initiatives that have been implemented previously by GFDRR with the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA), the Surveys Department (which is in charge of maps and geodata) and other relevant government departments. These initiatives include an Integrated Flood Risk Management Plan (IFRMP) for the Shire Basin, an open data, Geonode based platform called Malawi Spatial Data Port (MASDAP) and a specific needs assessment for Nsanje (Nsanje 2012 Floods Post Disaster Needs Assessment).
The project aims to hold a series of meetings and training sessions on open data and community mapping, engaging government departments, university students (especially from the Polytechnic School in Blantyre), NGOs and civil society. In addition, it will collect geospatial data from Chikhwawa and Nsanje, edit and upload it in partnership with the OSM worldwide community. Hot will also explain how authorities can host the data on the Malawi Open Spatial Data Portal (MASDAP) and use it effectively, especially by holding training on the INASAFE tool to perform contingency planning with the OSM data.
A team of three experienced members from HOT will be deployed to address all the different aspects of the projects and interact with all the stakeholders.
