This story was made in collaboration with Safe Software partner axmann geoinformation gmbh.
The importance of accessible maps for crisis response
When conflict or disaster strikes, first responders need to move fast. For the teams at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an independent humanitarian organization providing emergency medical aid in over 70 countries, access to geodata is critical to provide accurate information about affected areas and to inform relief operations.
Geodata plays a critical role in nearly every MSF mission. The organization’s GIS team supports operations worldwide, primarily by using spatial analysis to plan missions and report on activities in the field. But in many of the regions where MSF operates, reliable map data simply doesn’t exist, or what does exist is outdated, incomplete, or inaccessible to teams on the ground.
For years, an ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo has forced people from their homes. Several camps were set up on the outskirts of Goma where people found refuge. In February 2024, one of these camps was already home to 95,000 people—a staggering number that has continued to rise. Many affected areas were absent from freely accessible maps, leaving aid workers without the information they needed to plan the delivery of shelter, food, sanitation facilities, and water.
Building maps from the ground up
To address this challenge, MSF’s GIS team turned to the Missing Maps project, an open initiative that allows anyone to help map areas to support humanitarian organizations. Volunteers digitise satellite images in the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Tasking Manager, users on the ground add local details such as neighbourhoods or street names, and humanitarian organizations can subsequently use these maps for their work.
GIS Specialist Leslie Jessen and her team use FME as the backbone of their data processing workflows. Raw geospatial data, often sourced from open and freely available datasets, is researched, transformed, and quality-checked using automated FME processes before being made available to MSF teams on the ground. Data verification and quality control are also among the tasks of the GIS experts.
FME was used as the basis for satellite image processing throughout mapathons— coordinated volunteer efforts—to map the outskirts of Goma, including Rusayo III, helping turn raw imagery into usable map data. This created a foundation that volunteers could then build on. The result was a before-and-after transformation: areas that had previously been blank on the map were filled in with the detail that first responders needed to plan their response.
Geodata as a humanitarian tool
The value of this work extends well beyond a single emergency. The GIS team regularly works with open, freely available data, using FME to transform it and make it available to teams on-site. What would otherwise require significant manual effort and specialized GIS expertise is now handled through repeatable, automated workflows.
For an organization operating in some of the world’s most challenging environments, that reliability matters. Accurate maps help MSF first responders make quick and efficient decisions, reach the right places, and optimize the distribution of resources. Without them, important information is missing, severely hampering rescue and relief efforts.
With a reliable data foundation in place, MSF’s GIS team can better provide first responders with the data needed to support quick response and efficient resource allocation.
Media: Michael Neuman/MSF | Refugee camps around Goma
