Chad refugees#
Project Introduction#
Surrounded by pervasive conflicts in neighboring countries, Chad has received large numbers of refugees, asylum seekers, and returnees since the early 2000s, from Western Darfur, the Central African Republic, and most recently the Lake Chad Basin. As of January 2021, the country it self one of the poorest in the world was hosting nearly half a million refugees, more refugees per capita than any of the other African countries eligible for World Bank support for refugee- hosting countries. As these refugee situations become increasingly protracted, the challenge for Chad and its partners is to help refugees rebuild their lives and become self-sufficient while at the same time creating an environment in which refugees and Chadians can thrive together. In addition, the country has faced several fragility and institutional challenges, in a region rife with conflict. There are an estimated 240,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and more than 30,000 Chadian returnees, adding pressure to the already fragile economy. Moreover, a macroeconomic crisis, mainly due to the fall of oil exports and increased security expenditure, exacerbates these difficulties. There is an urgent need, not only to deal with the existing situation, but also to develop a capacity to manage such repeated inflows of refugees in the longer term. Most displaced populations are hosted along Chad’s borders and in other hard to each and isolated and lagging regions making it difficult to rely solely on the traditional data collection methods. This activity therefore seeks to fill in the data gaps on these populations using geospatial data.
Baseline Assessment#
Data improvements were undertaken by Development Seed. They prepared a preliminary assessment of the quality of the esiting OSM data, as well as the quality of the underlying satellite imagery; and then a second report on the nature of the data improvements. Preliminary conclusions of the pre-update data quality are as follows:
OSM data coverage of the 22 camps: 3 had high data coverage, 15 have partial coverage, 4 had no coverage
Imagery quality of the 22 camps: 5 camps had medium quality imagery, 17 had low quality imagery
Improvement Results#
The company commissioned to perform the improvements were able to complete 21 of the 22 camps within the prescribed time period. This included adding 119279 buildings and 677km of road.