By Andreas von Warburg
Google is changing the face of humanitarian and multilateral diplomacy with a newly-launched powerful online mapping program that provides an up-close and multifaceted view of some of the world’s major displacement crises and the humanitarian efforts aimed at helping the victims.
The program, named Google Earth Outreach, is a spin off of the most famous Google Earth application. Created in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), it gives humanitarian agencies around the world the ability to use Google Earth and Maps to highlight their work on behalf of millions of refugees and other populations of concern in some of the world’s most remote and difficult areas.
“Charities and NGOs are constantly looking for new ways to make people aware of the issues they are trying to solve,” said Rebecca Moore, head of Earth Outreach at Google. “Putting information into its geographical context makes it possible to show the complexity and the effect of the work of organizations such as UNHCR.”
Google’s new program provides humanitarian agencies with the skills and resources to use Google Earth and Maps to highlight their work to a mass audience. The agencies can overlay text, audio and video information onto Google Earth in what is known as a “layer,” enabling them to explain and illustrate their humanitarian work to a worldwide audience.
“Google Earth is a very powerful way for UNHCR to show the vital work that it is doing in some of the world’s most remote and difficult displacement situations,” said L. Craig Johnstone, Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, during the launch of the new program in Geneva. “By showing our work in its geographical context, we can really highlight the challenges we face on the ground and how we tackle them.”
Outfitted to better respond to the UNHCR’s goals, Google Earth Outreach shows three levels of detail. The first provides an overview of UNHCR itself and takes the user on a journey to three major displacement operations – in Darfur/Chad, Iraq and Colombia. The impact on neighboring countries, including Sudan, Syria and Ecuador, is also explored, and refugee camp locations are highlighted on the Google Earth maps.
The second layer brings the user even closer to the life of those in exile, exploring such elements as refugee health, education, water and sanitation. Pop-up windows linked to precise geographical points in camps and refugee communities provide written explanations, photos and videos of specific needs and operations.
The third level, the “macro-view,” takes the online visitor right down to the local level within a refugee camp, allowing examination of schools, water points and other infrastructure found in a typical site.
UNHCR’s technical experts say that as it grows, the Google Earth program will allow UNHCR and its humanitarian partners to build and share with each other a visual, geographic record of their joint efforts on the ground to help refugees. This could include, for example, cross-border mapping of population flows as well as the location of displaced persons in relation to their places of origin – useful information in logistical planning for eventual repatriation operations.
In order to show the potential of Google Earth’s new mapping program, the UNHCR has created a virtual reality tour of some of the world’s major displacement crises and the humanitarian efforts aimed at helping the victims. Click here to explore it.
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