How mapping can help progress towards
the Sustainable Development Goals
Goal 1 – No Poverty
End poverty in all its forms everywhere
What Crowd2Map is doing:
We are mapping basic services including education, water points, sanitation, and electricity
We work with rural communities to map underrepresented villages. See our Missing Villages Project
We are mapping commercial activity to understand economic needs and opportunities
Goal 2 – Zero Hunger
End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
What Crowd2Map is doing:
We map access to food, such as school farms, markets, and shops in order to identify food deserts
We map farms to help NGOs such as Mboni ya Vijana and PlantVillage reach farmers for assistance and training opportunities
Goal 3 – Good Health and Wellbeing
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
What Crowd2Map is doing:
We map areas where girls are at risk of Female Genital Mutilation and train Digital Champions to help protect them. Activists estimate that having better maps has helped protect over 3000 girls from being cut. We were invited to talk about this work at the UN General Assembly in 2018.
We map barriers to healthcare services, such as the distance people must travel for healthcare and the cost of transportation. – See healthcare mapping project.
Goal 4 – Quality Education
Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning
What Crowd2Map is doing:
We map barriers to education, such as the distance students must travel to school and unsafe or vulnerable areas en route to or near schools. See Womens’ Day Challenge
We engage students in on-the-ground geographic data collection to improve map literacy and spatial awareness, as well as empower students to have a say in how their community is represented on the world map, through our partnerships with the 16 Youthmapper chapters in Tanzania
We provide vocational training in the latest open source GIS tools to substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs, and entrepreneurship. See our internship program
Goal 5 – Gender Equality
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
What Crowd2Map is doing:
We are engaging girls and women in mapping areas of their community that are unsafe or pose serious risks and empower them to advocate for change by working with community leaders, local government, police, and civil society, particularly through our Digital Champions Project.
We are creating maps of services disproportionally used by women such as water points.
We organise events to discuss Open Gender Data and engage with other organisations that promote this such as Open Heroines who supported our Open Data Day.
We provide opportunities to young women through training opportunities for community groups, online volunteers, youthmappers and our interns, to enhance information and communications technology skillsets to promote the empowerment of women.
We showcase amazing women in mapping.
Goal 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation
Ensure access to water and sanitation for all
What Crowd2Map is doing:
We are creating maps of water points.
We are mapping school and public toilets, and other facilities to understand distribution of and access to sanitation facilities
We are working with Youthmapper groups who are conducting participatory mapping activities to map out flood and hazard history to understand which water and sanitation facilities are at risk
Goal 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy
Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
What Crowd2Map is doing:
We are adding infrastructure such as power lines and plants to the map allowing for accurate assessments of the proportion of population that is connected to the grid and contributing to projects determining viability of proposed electricity minigrid locations.
Goal 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth
Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all
What Crowd2Map is doing:
We are working with YouthMappers to provide young adults with GIS and other highly valuable skills for improved employment opportunities.
We are providing training in GIS, field data collection, and other technical skills that can yield future employment and business development.
We are mapping financial services to encourage and expand access to banking, insurance, and financial services for all, particularly in rural areas.
We are mapping tourism locations and services; adding to the map locations to attract business as well as understand gaps and opportunities in collaboration with SETCO Serengeti YouthMappers.
Goal 9 – Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
What Crowd2Map is doing:
We are mapping basic infrastructure such as roads and buildings which is often the first step in understanding and solving larger issues. Through the power of the our global community, roads and buildings can be mapped remotely while communities and teams on the ground add important local knowledge. This information can be used to understand which populations have access to basic services and how to reach vulnerable people during a disaster.
We are also mapping schools’ access to ICT hardware and internet connectivity in an attempt to narrow the digital divide.
Goal 10 Reduced Inequality
Reduce inequality within and among countries
What Crowd2Map is doing:
There is a big Urban/Rural divide in countries like Tanzania where rural populations often face poor access to services such as water, health and education. Mapping these is the first step towards more equitable access.
Our Missing villages project has added over x villages into OpenStreetMap for the first time, to allow for better planning on developing community services, and our projects mapping rural road networks adds navigation and routing.
Goal 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities
Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
What Crowd2Map is doing:
Working with organisations like Trufi and Youthmappers we have started to map bus routes to encourage use of safe, affordable, accessible, and sustainable transport systems.
Some of the Youthmapper groups we support are mapping water and drainage to inform urban planning and significantly reduce the number of people affected by disasters, including water-related disasters.
Goal 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
What Crowd2Map is doing:
Some of the Youthmapper groups we support are mapping trouble spots for waste that might otherwise be overlooked and allows them to identify priorities for interventions. They can then analyze proximity of waste sites to water points, waterways, schools, and other features to prioritize waste management
Goal 13 – Climate Action
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
What Crowd2Map is doing:
Climate change is already having effects in Tanzania with more unpredictable weather leading to both drought and floods. Having up to date map data to help disaster responders to understand where to go and how to reach those in need quickly is increasingly vital. We are contributing to this by mapping roads and buildings as well as health clinics, schools, and other important infrastructure.
Goal 14 – Life Below Water
Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources
What Crowd2Map is doing:
Youthmapper groups such as Suza are mapping mangroves and other important coastal habitats to monitor changes in land cover.
We are also mapping water and drainage to inform water flows into open oceans so that pollution input can be better understood.
Goal 15 – Life on Land
Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss
What Crowd2Map is doing:
We are adding boundaries of designated protected areas to OpenStreetMap and mapping buildings and infrastructure in and around designated protected areas to understand and monitor encroachment.
We are starting to map land use areas to understand change and development
Goal 16 – Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies
What Crowd2Map is doing:
We are mapping administrative and civic services available to citizens and refugees. We also map communication facilities (i.e. radio stations) to allow better monitoring of free speech.
We use open mapping as a platform to bring together volunteers from across the globe to work together toward a common goal.
Goal 17 – Partnerships
Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
What Crowd2Map is doing:
We support local communities around Open Data, Free and Open Source Software and in particular OpenStreetMap. We organise many different events and training to bring together many different groups working in this field to learn from each other, such as our monthly mapping groups sessions and weekly trainings, recordings here. We ensure all our training is publicly available and collaborate with any partners who share our aims. With partners such as Open Map Development Tanzania and Youthmappers we organise events such as State of the Map Tanzania and Open Data Days.