And I certainly agree that the humanitarian sector leave much to be desired in terms of community values and local empowerment. The other movement I’m involved in (MSF) is currently in the midst of a huge and urgent moment of self-reflection on this, which undoubtedly colors my responses here.

And yes, I was parachuted into Tanzania as a White man from the West to lead the team. And I see the problem with that (and I think was moderately successful at working myself out of a job; my former position is now occupied by a Tanzanian).

Just as the OSM movement is more than maps and data, the humanitarian movement is more than White Saviors. Becoming “enmeshed in the humanitarian system” is not just about sending expats and getting UN funding, it’s about supporting people who are doing important work for themselves and others.

• combative not compatible in that first paragraph (strange autocorrect artifact).

Hi all, I’m Ivan Gayton. I work for MSF most of the time, and I’ve been involved in Missing Maps since the beginning (or maybe even a bit before).

I think I speak for all of us connected to the humanitarian agencies behind the demand for the Missing Maps when I say that we are awed, respectful, and above all grateful for what OSM has created, both as a platform and as a community. We would not be able to do this if OSM hadn’t been built.

We acknowledge that the Missing Maps task - the mapping of the poorest and most vulnerable people and places on Earth - is in many ways an uncomfortable fit for the OSM philosophy and community. The Missing Maps is:

• Sometimes not driven by local people, rather by outside agencies
• Aligned primarily with the goals of humanitarian agencies
• Well-financed in pursuit of those goals
• Bringing a lot of people into the OSM community without necessarily integrating them
• Not necessarily a sustainable model for community development

I recognize that these are serious concerns for the OSM community! I don’t want to minimize the concerns, but perhaps I can start the discussion about them with a bit of our perspective:

I’m generally opposed to externally-driven development. However, emergency response is a bit of a different story. A colleague of mine once responded to the “give a person a fish, they eat for a day, teach them to fish and they eat for a lifetime” aphorism by saying, “The people I’m concerned with already know how to fish much better than I do, but when they go near the river someone shoots them. For now, I’m going to give them a fish”. In India and Tanzania, as in the UK and Canada, I hope and expect to see a locally-rooted OSM community map their own world. However, the people of South Sudan and the Congo have other, more pressing concerns right now than making an open map! They’re struggling for their lives (and in my opinion their plight is not unrelated to the conduct of our societies with respect to their natural resources), and there’s precious little functioning civil society, especially of a nature that can be effective in digital mapping. As much as I hate to “do for, not with” people, there are certain areas of the world where an emergency humanitarian, rather than a development, approach is appropriate.

When we say, “putting the world’s most vulnerable people on the map”, we mean to emphasize that all people, even those in poor areas, have a right to decent basic infrastructure, including open map data. If anyone can think of a slogan that better captures that, I’m all ears!

Humanitarian agencies have substantial responsibilities to the people we serve. Our mandate is self-chosen, but that doesn’t mean we can escape the responsibility it thrusts upon us. We don’t always get it right, but we have an obligation to try.

I consider decent maps to be part of fundamental public health infrastructure. WHen they are missing, and people get poorer health care as a result, it’s another injustice that demands action. Just as I believe that the people of Haiti should have water and sanitation infrastructure to protect them from cholera, I believe that the people of the Central African Republic should have a map to enable as effective an epidemic response as possible. Basic public health infrastructure is not a luxury or a hobby, it’s human right. If the citizens of a country can’t build it without help because their country is devastated by violence and oppression, we as humanitarians feel an obligation to pitch in. And, of course, to do so in as collaborative and non-colonial fashion as is feasible in the given context!

Incidentally, I was a bit hurt by the “humanitarian hard-sell, aka crying babies” comment. I’m also horrified by exploitative advertising, and I while it’s certainly an ugly feature of some humanitarian action I really don’t think we’ve done it in the context of the Missing Maps. If we have, please tell us so, and say where.

Humanitarian, development, and UN agencies have been making maps for decades, usually poorly, and almost never openly. There are a number of agencies (and companies) vying to be the owners/curators/vendors of the maps of the vulnerable areas, and most of them have, if not a financial interest, an institutional interest in controlling the data. The Missing Maps project was intended to get the humanitarian sector using, contributing to, and sharing open geographical data. Knowing we were mapping anyway, we chose to contribute to OSM, and encourage all others to do so as well, because it is the appropriate place for open geographical data. It’s not the only repository we could have used to place our data, but it’s the right one, both practically and ethically.

You, the OSM commmunity, built this platform. We, the humanitarian users, are now taking advantage of it for our work. Missing Maps is not an organization (as Pete pointed out), it’s a project to bridge the humanitarian and OSM communities to make the best possible use of this platform. Again, we chose OSM because it is the RIGHT place for open geographical data! Please don’t take this as a slight to your original vision of locally-driven mapping, it’s a respectful acknowledgment that what you have built is an important, even vital, global commons.

We need to work harder to give back to the OSM community, and to involve you (or at least ensure the door is wide open and the tea is on). We also need to ensure a healthy cross-pollination with the new people we are bringing on board, and avoid tipping the boat. Consider your concerns heard, acknowledged, taken seriously, and valid. Let’s get to work together!

@SK53 settling on building=hut followed by a hut=whatever_local_word (despite it not being a perfect solution, as you say) is a good suggestion. I’ll discuss with the team; if we settle on a standard for small, thatched, round houses that will be quite useful.