Finding The ‘Invisible’ Millions Who Are Not On Maps

“There are about two billion people in the world who don’t appear on a proper map,” says Ivan Gayton from the charity Humanitarian OpenStreetMap.

“It’s shameful that we - as cartographers of the world - don’t take enough interest to even know where they are. People are living and dying without appearing on any database.”

Known as the “Wikipedia for maps”, anyone can download OpenStreetMap and edit it too.

“It’s an amazing situation where anyone could wreck it, anyone can add to it, but what we’ve ended up with is a map that is the most up-to-date in some places.”

According to Mr Gayton, it is the most complete and accurate map for many parts of the world, especially in rural Africa, where underinvestment means, outside of cities, there are often blank pages where millions live.

As we sit in Rwanda, Mr Gayton gestures into the distance: “It’s not very far from here, over in the Democratic Republic of Congo just across the border, where the information all but stops. It’s not like people don’t live there, they just aren’t recorded.” Mr Gayton says it can be a matter of life and death. “If you take an outbreak of disease like Ebola or the new coronavirus, contact tracing is how you stop epidemics. It’s not the treatment, it’s the public health and map data that makes it possible.”

He worked on mapping efforts during the West Africa Ebola outbreak of 201415, and found a lack of data caused critical problems in locating disease hotspots.

“If you come into a health facility anywhere in the world with a communicable disease, they’ll ask you where you’re from. In the low-income world you don’t always have a system for describing that location.” This is something that Liz Hughes, chief executive of Map Action, is passionate about too. Her organisation helps provide maps for aid agencies and governments, using both technology and volunteers.

She cites examples such as flooding, where up-to-date maps are needed urgently. “We can work out where the most critical need is, and then aid can be better targeted in a natural disaster or epidemic situation.”

The big technology firms have invested huge amounts into their mapping efforts, but Ivan Gayton says there is a clear gulf in terms of priority.

“There isn’t much commercial incentive for Google to identify the nearest Starbucks in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” he says.

Maps are the building blocks of economic development. Without accurate maps it’s not just navigating from A to B that can be difficult - the essential tasks of proper planning for housing and infrastructure can be impossible.

he World Bank’s Edward Anderson has worked on mapping efforts for the last decade, first in the Pacific, and now in Africa. He says that traditionally, maps were done at a national level, and it could take years between a survey and the production and application of the map.

“Cities are especially a problem, because we are seeing very rapid urbanisation, and the fastest rate of unplanned urbanisation in history. Around 80% of the growth in urban areas is unplanned, and 70% of new residents in cities are entering slums.

“Quite often the maps city planners have to use are 10 years old.”

This means, he says, that authorities are always playing catch-up.

One of those capitalising on the need for mapping is Tanzanian entrepreneur Freddie Mbuya. Mining companies pay him to map their land using drones. This kind of detailed mapping needs to be done frequently, often in areas that are hard to reach.

He says global technology companies don’t have the incentive to map to a local scale in rural Africa, which would be timeconsuming and costly.

“Google and Apple maps do not differentiate between a good road and a bad road - but that’s so important,” he says.

Mr Mbuya adds that land titling is also critical for development.

“Land is the key to fighting poverty. But how can we do this if we don’t know where our land is? If the land isn’t titled we cannot leverage the value of our land. Most of my family land has been lost or is not being developed - we need land to be surveyed and formalised…. so we can go to a bank and get a loan with a piece of paper saying I own this land.”(BBC)