Moving Refugees

This is unprecedented! Two contributions from one person in one day!!

Firstly: A bunch of us got an e-mail today from John Marinos at the UNHCR Somalia. I begged and pleaded and he finally relented to me posting his message to the SDI-EA blog. Why? Because to it's got all (well, many) the right elements we seek in SDI-EA: innovative communication, collaboration within a community etc. etc. Of course, in my version of A Perfect World you'd be posting these data to the likes of SWALIM and/or DEPHA and, through the magic of interoperablnes finding it being served in ready-to-use guises through Google Maps or Google Earth, GIS clients and flat browsers, all at no extra cost. I guess we got a ways to go yet but I think it's a goal worth bearing in mind. Anyway, John's KML is posted at http://dewa03.unep.org/downloads/UNHCR_IDPs_Sep06_to_Aug07.kmz

"Dear colleagues,

"This email attempts to kill 3 birds with one stone... as the saying goes.

"1) I am distributing to the usual suspects, the latest version of the PMT [That's Population Movement Tracking for those of us outside humanitarian space. Mick] database. This version is the same as the one circulated last month but now includes the movements from August 2007. It is for your use, and if you'd like to post it for dissemination on GeoNetworks or DEPHA (as a WFS) then go for it. The attached zip file contains the data as a shape file, along with metadata and a document to explain the fields in the table.

"2) Also attached is the latest PMT map. Feel free to put this on ReliefWeb, GeoNetworks, OCHA-Somalia, or wherever.

"3) Lastly, I've been trying to find a way for people to see and appreciate the scale of IDP [Internally Displaced Persons a.k.a refugges that haven't crossed an international border. Mick] movements in Somalia. With the help of Craig Von Hagen, who forwarded a useful email to me we've put together a KMZ file that allows you to use Google Earth (v.4) to view the locations of IDPs and the reasons for movement - per month. It covers the period Sep 2006 until August 2007.

"By double clicking on the KMZ file below it should open Google Earth (assuming that you have it installed on your machine). It includes the districts of Somalia along with 12 maps (actually image overlays) each showing locations where IDPs have moved for that particular month (according to PMT reports received by our partners). Each location is color coded* by the reason for displacement** If you have Google Earth version 4 installed, it will recognize the time tags and a sliding bar will appear at the top of your screen - to the left of your navigation control. This will allow you to "scroll" through time and see the different monthly maps. Notice how Nov 07 had a lot of flood displacement? Notice the displacement because of insecurity from Feb till now, with a lull in May? The goal is to provide you with an easy to use (and very cool) tool to view the data we've collected on IDP movements this last year. The secondary goal is to stop me from making PP presentations with this same information.

"Some problems:
"* I don't know how to put a legend in Google Earth. Therefore there is a PDF attached showing what the different colored dots mean.
"** There are some locations that have 2 different reasons for movement in the same month. (i.e. Some people moved to Baydhaba because of drought, some people because of insecurity). In these cases only one reason for movement is displayed. I've tried unsuccessfully to fix the situation. I'll continue to try. Remember this is only a test!

"If you are one of the techies who would like more information on the methodology of the PMT project or on other Protection Cluster initiatives, don't hesitate to ask. If you're a non-techy and want to know more about the data we have available and how best to use it, don't hesitate to ask.

"I look forward to your comments on the KMZ file.

"Best Regards,"

Secondly, later also from John:

"In other exciting news. I've used my fancy new upgraded MapInfo to log onto DEPHA's Geoserver.
http://dewa03.unep.org/geoserver/wfs?request=GetCapabilities&service=WFS&version=1.0.0
I've even downloaded the (old) Admin boundaries for Somalia. Look! Its there now. I'm using data on my PC thats sitting on your server. How cool is that!?!

"Now that I'm able to party with you guys, may I kindly request that you post some data sets that may of interest to the community.
"1) IDP settlements in Somalia
"2) IDP locations
"- these are different. #1 is the actual IDP settlement within various towns in Somalia. #2 are the towns/villages that have received IDPs over the last few months.

"Now that Somalia is covered I'm sure there are regional datasets that our Regional Hub can send over that people are sure to enjoy.

"Forgive me if I"m jumping the gun a little. You guys at DEPHA are not our personal data posters.. Let us know if you're interested in this data, then in what format it should be in to be the easiest for you to work with. Also bear in mind that this data gets updated frequently.

"Viva la EA-SDI!!!!
"JOHN"

Not a bad day's work, I think.

A real "One UN" opportunity?

Two of the goals stated early on for SDI-EA were getting the UN better able to deliver better member States by boosting their national SDI efforts, and getting at least bits of the UN working better by boosting interoperability amongst agencies as some sort of practical aspect of the UN reform and delivering as One UN. There now maybe cause for think that some of this might actually happen.

On Tuesday this week I had an unplanned but very illuminating meeting with Mr. Georges Tadonki, the senior regional information management advisor with SAHIMS (http://www.sahims.net/), the Southern African Human-development Information Management Network for Coordinated Humanitarian & Development Action - rather a lot to squeeze onto a business card but nonetheless important. SAHIM is in many respects the southern African equivalent of DEPHA (www.depha.org), the Data Exchange Platform for the Horn of Africa, the inter-agency group with whom UNEP is working closely as we try to roll out SDI in East Africa.

Georges has been engaged by the UN Resident Coordinator in Kenya to assist with the development of a Kenyan Humanitarian Information Management System (KHIM), reviewing the available information management platforms and assessing their contributions to humanitarian information management. He is also to analyze opportunities and challenges of creating some sort of central information repository, and to conduct a training workshop with IMOs from both humanitarian and development agencies, including the Government of Kenya and key donors, to build consensus on a shared platform and design a way forward for the country team.

A number of resonant chords were struck here: the potential institutional line-ups between this humanitarian sector task and the development of more general Kenyan SDI; the overlap with the OCHA Regional Offices interests in both SDI and humanitarian information development; the fact that SDI-EA has already had some engagement with ICRC and (as of last week) has also been approached by International Rescue; plus of course UNEP's focus on climate change adaptation strategies and its impacts on humanitarian issues. Interestingly enough, after Georges had introduced SAHIM and the KHIM, I gave him standard spiel #27 about UNSDI, engagement with national SDIs, open standards, distributed systems and so on, and explaining the SDI-EA effort while drawing my usual back-of-the-napkin cluster diagram when, lo!, Georges flipped back through his notes and showed us virtually the same diagram he'd sketched in a meeting the previous morning. Ahhh, convergent thinking.

Anyway, at this stage it suggests and important and powerful opportunity to align this ad hoc SDI-EA activity with some real, official UN country team activities targeting a specific community with (presumably - I'm no specialist) well-articulated needs. Now all we have to do is get the Resident Coordinator to start thinking less in terms of "central information repository" and more about distributed and custodial but integrated services. I think that's part of Georges' job.

A Satisfied Customer!

I know this is likely to come across of blowing one's own trumpet but, on the other hand, when there's a happy and satisfied customer who sees further potential and value flowing from their first foray into this interoperability stuff then that's an important message to get out. Part of the hope of SDI-EA since the outset has been the idea that being able to take incremental steps and demonstrate success every step of the way is key to ensuring management support and community acceptance for these SDI-type activities. Maybe we start seeing justification for that approach.

Anyway, the short version of the story is that UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) prepare periodic reports based on field asessments of the movements of internlly displaced persons (IDPs) in Somalia. As you know from the news hundreds of thousands have fled Mogadishu in recent months and the humanitarian agencies and NGO's scramble (sometime literally) to keep their supply lines up to those in need. UNHCR have distributed the location of the IDP camps as lat/lon coordinate pairs coded in Excel sheets and/or as accompanying maps.

What DEPHA (the Data Exchange Platform for the Horn of Africa, www.depha.org) offered to do with some support from UNEP was take those data and publish them as an open-standard Web Feature Service. One consequence? The same data can be output as KML and viewed via Google Earth. And our man at UNHCR is very happy about this, and sees real utility in not only having a new vehicle for communication but also for integration with other types of data. Download http://www.depha.org/maps/Somalia/previewmaps/idpSomalia.kml or try the WMS at http://www.depha.org/maps/Somalia/previewmaps/idpSomalia.kml, or try the WFS at http://dewa03.unep.org:8080/geoserver/wfs?request=GetCapabilities&service=WFS&version=1.0.0

As an aside, a colleague here at UNEP who saw UNHCR's data coming up last Friday was very quick to see the potential for integrating with his existing ArcIMS service depicting refugee camps across Africa. He was even more impressed when he saw that he didn't need to copy and integrate the data but could just link them in via the WFS interface. Yea. Interoperability. Getting our own back yard in order.

Now all we have to do is get the IDP data showing up in the context of UN Habitat's urban areas data and I will be glad to say that this humble little SDI-EA effort will have passed a major milestone.

PS FAO, UNEP and DEPHA are contemplating a (couple of?) hand-on session(s) for technical types where we'd actually set up a network and have practitioners bring their data, set up their own WFS's and start interoperating at least on a local scale. As usual there's no budget or blessing for this but we figure that we can scrape together enough PCs and network gear and a meeting room for half a day to make it work. The whole session would not take more than a morning, starting from scratch with the server intllations (takes about 10 minutes), setting up the spatial databases, and transforming existing static data into exciting dynamic content being integrated across institutional boundaries. Think of it as a "train-the-trainers" exercise; if we're successful then, who know, maybe RCMRD might offer to host a followup at Kasarani, or add such offerings to their schedule of courses.

Cheers


Mick Wilson
Division of Early Warning and Assessment (DEWA)
United Nations Environment Programme
PO Box 30552 - Nairobi 00100, Kenya
Tel: +254 20 7623436
Fax: +254 20 7624315
Email: mick.wilson@unep.org
Web www.unep.net, www.unep.org

----- Forwarded by Mick Wilson/UNEP/NBO/UNO on 05/07/2007 04:19 PM -----
"John Marinos"
05/07/2007 03:12 PM
To

cc
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Subject
Re: Fw: IDP settlement coordinates to be hosted by DEPHA..also onGoogleearth





Thanks John,

I think this looks great. Really. I will share with our HQ because they love stuff like this.
It seems I need to get an update to my ArcGIS before using the WFS files. Nevertheless, I think the information on Google Earth is super-cool.

In theory there is no reason we couldn't merge this GIS file with a whole bunch of attribute data - pop, major area of origin, whatever... I suppose that this can easily be updated on GE, right? We'll work on that when I'm back from leave.

Thanks again. Seriously this is really good.

Best,
JOHN

>>> John Mugwe 05/07/07 02:40PM >>>
Sorry all for that UNEP logo...It was just a proof of capabilities.

We have now a new kml file ( see attached ) which is also going to be
uploaded on by close of the day

(See attached file: idpSomalia.kml)

http://www.depha.org where anyone access it.

Best regards

John Mugwe