Using Open Source Web Mapping Application to Monitor Social Programmes: A Case Study of UNICEF Somalia

Abstract: Humanitarian organisations often require reporting to donors on the programmes undertaken, their location, the number of beneficiaries targeted, the number of beneficiaries reached, among others. UN and other non UN agencies have formed clusters or groups that work together to deliver humanitarian assistance in the main sectors like health, education and water. Clusters create partnerships between humanitarian agencies, national authorities, local authorities and civil society. For the humanitarian agencies working in Somalia, the information about the programmes undertaken by the cluster is contained in a 4W Matrix. This information needs to be shared between one hundred and fifty members in the cluster working in different locations inside Somalia. The principle objective of the research was to develop a prototype Web application for sharing geospatial information using data from the sixteen districts of Mogadishu city. The 4W matrix was converted into GIS vector data file format and imported into a PostGIS database. GeoServer was used as the map server to publish data from PostGIS. Heron Mapping Client provided the front-end user interface while Apache Web Server was deployed to enable online access. The web application can run queries on feature attributes e.g. water sources, health facilities, schools etc. Additionally it is possible to compute point-to-point distances or find the area enclosed by an administrative district. This enables specific queries to be run on the map thus providing specific results that each agency may be interested in. Feature layers (schools, water sources etc.) can also be turned on or off, to provide for clear maps devoid of too many features. The developed application addresses the challenges that UN and non UN agencies face in sharing geospatial information. To protect sensitive information from public access, it is recommended that the web server runs behind a secure firewall.