May 21, 2014 – KIGALI, RWANDA – Today, the African Development Bank (AfDB), in partnership with AidData, launched MapAfrica at its annual meetings in Kigali. The interactive online platform enables citizens, government officials and donors to view the geographic location of AfDB’s investments in development projects throughout Africa. AfDB has long been a leader in aid transparency and partnered early on with AidData to geocode AfDB’s portfolio of projects – applying precise location information to development activities. Now AfDB and AidData are taking an important next step, building upon these geocoding efforts by matching investments with results data and beneficiary stories, allowing citizens and other users to more easily see not only what AfDB is doing and where, but also the impact of those activities.
According to AidData Steering Committee Member and Development Gateway CEO Jean-Louis Sarbib, “Results and accountability matter whether in the Global North or the Global South. MapAfrica gives citizens and professionals the information they need in an intuitive format so they can participate in the development process and improve its effectiveness."
The MapAfrica platform offers new and innovative ways for users to view development projects and improve the targeting, coordination and evaluation of aid. With MapAfrica, citizens can drill down to a country, district or city level. Citizens, NGOs and policymakers can access hyper-local information about projects that are relevant to them and view results information. MapAfrica contains more than 6,000 geocoded project locations and users can filter those project locations by country, sector and year. Users will also be able to select one project and view all implementation locations, providing an accurate sense of the scope and breadth of the project. Data layers in the MapAfrica platform, such as GDP per capita and subnational poverty rates, can be layered to allow users to view indicators of interest alongside project implementation locations. The platform was developed using Esri’s ArcGIS platform, specifically ArcGIS API for Javascript and ArcGIS for Server technology. Esri, a leading GIS company, is a longtime partner of AidData.
MapAfrica, paired with AfDB’s institutionalization of geocoding and commitment to transparency, holds tremendous promise in helping to repair the broken feedback loop between donors, governments and the citizens that projects intend to help. In the future, AfDB and AidData will pilot a citizen feedback component of MapAfrica. Today’s launch of MapAfrica, alongside other data portals on aid and development including AidData’s own aiddata.org, is expanding opportunities for a broader community of users to provide hyper-local feedback on development investments, learn more about what works and engage in informed dialogue about future development priorities.
For more information and to view a video about the MapAfrica platform, visit aiddata.org/mapafrica.
About AidDataAidData makes development finance information more accessible and actionable by creating data, decision support tools and knowledge products that enable the global development community to more effectively target, coordinate and evaluate aid. With AidData’s comprehensive data portal – aiddata.org – development researchers and practitioners can compare data on over $40 trillion in remittances, foreign direct investment and aid from 90 donor agencies.
About the African Development BankThe African Development Bank Group (AfDB) is Africa’s premier development finance institution. It comprises three distinct entities: the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Development Fund (ADF) and the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF). On the ground in 34 African countries with an external office in Japan, the AfDB contributes to the economic development and the social progress of its 54 regional member states. For more information: j.mp/AFDB_Media.
