Tracking Haiti Relief and Transitional

Shelter or T-shelter beneficiaries by

GPS and Google Earth Mapping

March 30, 2011

ICT4 Development Conference

Lusaka, Zambia

Project Background

After the Earthquake of January 2010Distribution of relief items in over 400 sites and hundreds of

partners, parishes, institutions; • 282,415 individuals receiving shelter assistance • 71,401 outpatient hospital consultations (hospital and

primary/camps) • 1,328 of WASH units (latrines, bathing spaces, etc) installed• 356 children reunified• Need to build 8,000 t-shelters before June 1, 2011

• 3,646 built by CRS, Habitat, and Cordaid (sub grantees)

Data Collect Data Management Mapping

Forms Registering form, distribution form, activity report

Computer Data Entry Analyzing and report

GPS Collect GPS coordinate

Camera Capture picture

SharePoint Data Entry View and report

Google earth Map

Open street map Map

Excel Tools With KMZ macro generator, we extract GPS information at one click.

KML file (Keyhole Markup Language)

Access Report with a several tables, filter, analyzing

Internet Connection Entry data in office and in the field

SharePoint Management

GIS Solution

GIS Solution

SharePointMicrosoft SharePoint is a software product developed by Microsoft for collaboration, file sharing, and web publishing.

Sharepoint on CRS Global manages the databases for the Haiti Relief Map and T-Shelter Map

Google Earth - Free version of Google Earth to create Placemark (pin) and Polygons

Open Street Map - creates and provides free geographic data such as street maps

GPS registers the geographic site of the distribution or the location of each t-shelter

A picture of the completed t-shelter construction is taken (with permission from the beneficiaries)

GIS Technology

All information collected from the forms is entered into a database on Sharepoint

Mais-Gate Site – T-Shelters

Take the GPS coordinates and enter this on the beneficiary form

Step one

Coordinates (Latitude,

longitude) to form

Process – T-Shelters

Step two

Data entry into SharePoint. All data from the form is matched to the SharePoint table fields

Process – T-Shelters

Step three

Design a polygon (visual tool in Google Earth) of the geographic boundaries of the CRS t-shelters A thumbnail is created for each shelter already built.

Database SharePoint

Work with at least two

tables

KML Generator

Process – T-Shelters

KML

SHELTER ShelterName

PLOTLatitude

Longitude

Address

With an excel macro, a KML file is generated that is logged in Google Earth for the shelter map design

Excel file – KML in Google Earth

Process – Haiti Relief Map

Step 1: Sector indicators established# of WASH infrastructures installed

Step 2: Data fields determined and data collection from weekly reports

Process – Haiti Relief Map

Step 3: GPS information collected on sites

Step 4: Transfer data to SharePoint

Step 5: Populate the map

Key Challenges• Internet connectivity and electricity in the field

• SharePoint does not block double entries

• Difficult to establish indicators for sectors in a timely manner

• It was also difficult to distinguish which donor contributed to which activities at each site

• Large amounts of data require more than Google Earth as the platform – need ArcGIS

Lessons Learned – T-Shelter

• Visualization tool for small amounts of data – Google Earth may be more appropriate; large amounts of data and several databases – ArcGIS

• Visually see zone of geographic intervention

• Visually CRS can show other actors and avoid duplication of sites and beneficiaries – Stake their claim!

GPS coordinates are needed at the very beginning

Establish one name for a site/partner/camp

Invest the resources upfront reduces the duplication and the costs in the long term

Advocating The Relief Map to the UN Cluster system

Lessons Learned – Haiti Relief Map

Sustainability• Team members maintaining and updating the

database on a daily or weekly basis (cost)

• Coordination between the Program Managers and M&E Team

• Utilize in-country expertise for updating the database T-Shelter and Haiti Relief Map

• Establishing a protocol for emergency response using GPS and Arc

Usage

1. Share CRS’ interventions on where it is working in a densely populated urban area with other actors and the UN Cluster system

2. Twinning parishes in the States – updates

3. Produces reports to donors/internal use

4. Hyperlinks to success stories and photos for certain sites

Summary and Close

ICT 4D solution sustainability must be considered from the outset. - Cost Benefit Analysis

UN – One Response

Emergency Response – Visual Tool

GPS

Indicators

Avoid duplication

Reporting - SitReps

Thank You!

Merci!

Mesi anpil!