#TanzaniaCfR: Coding for Flood Resilience

Date: February 3, 2016

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CfR Fellows and Mentors

CfR Fellows and Mentors

Dar es Salaam and Stone Town are the two primary cities of Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar, with populations of 5.5 million and 150,000 respectively. Each of these cities and their country have unique challenges and hazards. Dar es Salaam for instance is challenged by bi-annual flooding, impacting many thousands of its citizens every year. In response to this, the World Bank, GFDRR, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and the Red Cross are supporting the Tanzanian Commission of Science and Technology, Buni Innovation Hub, Dar es Salaam City Council, Ardhi University and the University of Dar es Salaam with a community mapping for flood resilience project, Ramani Huria. In coordinating all of these actors, Ramani Huria has leveraged the skills of over 100 community members, 150 students, collecting data in the most flood prone neighbourhoods of Dar es Salaam, making maps and underlying data freely available for Dar es Salaam.

The convergence of these organisations and community members has kickstarted many discussions around how data and maps can improve the livelihoods of citizens, but also provided focus on how enhance the capacity of flood resilience and response by local and national government. This was fertile ground for Code for Resilience, a World Bank and GFDRR supported program, aimed at brining the next generation of technologists together with policy and decision makers to create the next generation of resilience applications. This is done through supporting six of the Tanzania’s brightest young technologists through a fellowship and mentorship program, working on problem statements derived from decision and policy makers.

This combination has led to the enhancement of the QGIS and InaSafe, open source softwares that create flood impact scenarios, that can then be used to inform on community level infrastructure improvements and/or evacuation planning. One such enhancement is the addition of elevation analysis to identify the extent of flood prone areas, based upon the amount of rainfall that such an area receives. This is an open source application that will automate the hydrologic analysis for Dar es Salaam City Council and allow for inundation scenarios to be created by community level civil servants, but also by the global commons.

Every city has it’s own priorities, in Zanzibar, the challenge is around organising the data that they already have. The open source ZanSea Geonode is helping do exactly this, with the support of StatOil, Obscom and the State University of Zanzibar, Zanzibar’s geospatial data is being organised. Metadata is a key part of data organisation, and one that two Code For Resilience fellows from the State University of Zanzibar, Massoud Hamad and Yussuf Said, are working on providing end to end metadata exchange, from Geonode to QGIS and back. In future this will allow metadata to be created and updated during data storage, retrieval, analysis and back to storage for the ZanSea Geonode and in future releases of Geonode around the world.

Each of these projects and others, such as 3D printing weather stations from recycled plastic and automating the delivery of population statistics, were initiated on the 30th of January at the Buni Innovation Hub in Tanzania. This event incorporated mentors from across the technology scene in Tanzania, Code for Resilience Fellows, from the University of Dar es Salaam and experts from Dar es Salaam City Council, all working together to develop these applications. It offers a bright future for collaboration and a more resilient Tanzania!

Learn more about mentorship, fellowship and code sprint activities at codeforresilience.org and learn more about community mapping and flood resilience in Dar es Salaam at http://ramanihuria.org.

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CfR Fellows and MentorsCfR Washiriki na Washauri/wakufunzi.

Dar es Salaam na Stone Town ni miji mikubwa miwili ya Tanzania na Zanzibar, yenye idadi ya watu milioni 5.5 na  150,000 kwa mtiririko. Kila mji katika hizi  nchi  una changamoto   na  majanga ya kipekee.Dar es Salaam kwa mfano inaathiriwa na mafuriko ya kila mwaka ambayo huwa yanaathiri maelfu ya wakazi wake kila mwaka. Katika kukabiliana na hili Benki ya Dunia,GFDRR, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team na  Red Cross wanasaidiana na Tume ya Taifa ya  Sayansi na Teknolojia, Buni Innovation Hub, Dar es Salaam City Council, Ardhi Chuo Kikuu na Chuo Kikuu Cha Dar es Salaam na mradi wa utengenezaji ramani za kijamii za kupambana na mafuriko,Ramani Huria.Katika kuwaweka pamoja hawa wadau,Ramani Huria ilifaidika na ujuzi wa zaidi ya wanajamii 100, wanafunzi 150, katika kukusanya taarifa za maeneo yanayoathiriwa sana na mafuriko  Dar es Salaam,kutengeneza ramani na kuweka data za Dar es Salaam ziwe huria kwa mtumiaji yeyote.

Muunganiko wa taasisi hizi na wanajamii ulianzisha midahalo mingi jinsi gani taarifa na ramani zinaweza kuboresha maisha ya wananchi, pia ilitoa mtazamo jinsi gani ya kuongeza uwezo wa kukabiliana na mafuriko kutoka katika serikali za mitaa hadi serikali kubwa. Hivyo kukawa na mwanzo wa Code for Resilience, Benki ya Dunia na  GFDRR walisaidia mpango,uliolenga kuleta pamoja kizazi cha wanateknolojia pamoja na sera na wafanya maamuzi ili kujenga kizazi kipya cha kupambana na majanga. Hii ilifanyikka kwa kusaidia wanateknolojia vijana 6 werevu wa kiTanzania kwa mpango wa ushirika na ushauri,wakifanyia kazi tatizo lilipatikana kutoka kwa wafanya maanuzi na watengeneza sera.

Huu muunganiko umepelekea kuboreshwa kwa QGIS na InaSafe,programu huria ambazo zinatengeneza matukio ya athari za mafuriko, ambazo zinazoweza kutoa taarifa ni hatua gani za marekebisho ya miundominu na/au mipango ya uokoaji katika jamii.Moja kati ya uboreshaji huo ni kuongezeka kwa uchambuzi wa kuonyesha kiasi cha maeneo yanayoathirika na mafuriko,kulingana na kiwango cha mvua katika eneo husika.Hii ni programu huru ambayo itafanya uchambuzi wa mojamoja wa masuala ya maji katika jiji la Dar es Salaam na kuwezesha mipango ya kupambana na mafuriko kutoka kwenye hatua ya wanajamii, wafanyakazi wa serikalini pia na dunia kiujumla.

Kila mji una vipaumbele vyake, Zanzibar,changamoto iliyopo ni kuandaa taarifa ambazo tayari zipo.Programu huru ya ZanSea Geonode  ndiyo inayosaidia kuandaa taarifa, kwa msaada wa StatOil, Obscom and the State University of Zanzibar, taarifa za kijiographia  za Zanzibar zinaandaliwa. Taarifa zilizopo  ndo chachu ya kuandaa taarifa, na nyingine ni Code For Resilience ambayo ina washiriki kutoka State University of Zanzibar, Massoud Hamad na  Yussuf Said,wanafanya kazi ya kutoa majibu ya mwisho ya mbadilishano wa taarifa zilizopo kutoka Geonode kwenda QGIS  na kurudi Geonode. Baadaye hii itasaidia meta data  kutengenezwa na kufanya taarifa ziwe za  kisasa katika kuzifadhi,kuzirudisha, kuchambua na kuzihifadhi tena kwa ajili ya ZanSea Geonode na baadae kuifungua Geonode kwa dunia nzima.

Miradi hii na mingineyo, kama vile kuprinti 3D kwenye  vituo vya hali ya hewa  kutoka plastiki zilizorudiwa kutengenezwa na moja kwa moja kupelekwa kwa watu, ilifanyiwa kazi tarehe30 mwezi wa kwanza Buni Innovation Hub Tanzania. Hili tukio lilihusisha wakufunzi kutoka sehemu mbalimbali za kiteknolojia Tanzania,washiriki kutoka  Code for Resilience,Chuo Kikuu Cha Dar es Salaam na wataalamu kutoka jiji la Dar es Salaam, wote wakifanya kazi kwa pamoja kutengeneza programu hizi. Hii italeta ushirikiano na Tanzania yenye uwezo.

Unaweza kusoma zaidi kuhusu ukufunzi,ushiriki na kazi za coding katika codeforresilience.org na kuhusu utengenezaji wa ramani za kijamii za mafuriko Dar es Salaam katika http://ramanihuria.org.

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