Series: Introduction to Anti-Corruption Mapping

Ushahidi
Apr 29, 2013

This blog series will focus on anti-corruption and transparency mapping. We'll post about best practices and feature some of the strategies to connect policy and action with online savvy. Our community strategy is aimed to connect topical mappers to build and learn together. Resources and Research will live on the: Wiki pages dedicated to Anti-Corruption and Transparency Ushahidians have been mapping corruption as either a category or their whole map mission since we launched. Online reporting via crisismaps of various shades and creeds are well known. Mapping anti-corruption and transparency actions is really a long-tail project. These slow burn projects take tremendous amounts of time and outreach to sustain. We've recognized a number of these as Deployments of the Week and included featured blog posts. Last month I had the honour to meet and learn with Transparency International's (TI) community at the very successful Speak Up Global event. Milena Marin is the Data and Technology Coordinator for TI's People Engagement group. She works with the community of Advocacy and Legal Advice Centers. Transparency International is one of a number of NGOs targeting corruption and transparency issues. They started in 1993 and have chapters in over 100 countries. Their mission: A world in which government, politics, business, civil society and the daily lives of people are free of corruption. From Milena about connecting our communities to support Online Reporting:

Corruption Map project analysis:

Meeting Diego at OpenGovHub
Meeting Diego at OpenGovHub

How can we support these amazing people who are trying to connect online and offline anti-corruption work? What tools, resources can we make available with our partners? What changes to Ushahidi software should occur to better support their efforts? Well, my first step was to collect as much data about the various mapping projects as possible. This is really a work in progress. I located and reviewed the maps for basic information such as categories and reports. Most of the maps are starter projects or tests. Then, there are the larger more programmatic projects that involve partners, strong mandates and a community. Some of these mapping projects were started by the Transparency International, ALAC members. Others are by passionate users trying to give voice to their community, their world. Quick stats about Anti-Corruption Maps:

Maps reviewed: 28

Total reports across maps: 6780

Number of categories used across all the maps: 463

Country with the most maps: India (3)

Projects that are using locations as categories for granularity: 4 – Colombia, Brasil, Albania, Kosovo

Map with the most reports: Zabatak (Egypt), followed by Kallxo (Kosovo) and One De Olho Nas Emendas (Brasil)

The Corruption Mapper community have written a number of blog posts about their work. Consider these Use Case examples. Note: Some maps have a number of civil society mandates beyond corruption. There are also there are election monitoring maps that include "corruption" as a category. These have not been included in this analysis. More data: Includes map name, website link, country, number of reports, and category names. Global Visuals: I've updated some screenshots of Anti-Corruption and Transparency Maps on slideshare. (Part 1 and Part 2)