How we support the humanitarian community
- Design & User Experience
- Digital Innovation
- Data Strategy
- Data Review & Analytics
Design & User Experience
Whether it’s a mobile application or a new website, great design and development complement each other. And it all starts with a solid strategy.
Design is only as impactful as the strategy supporting it. We start by asking a lot of questions, listening, and learning to make sure our ideas take the right shape before they take off. Then, we create a plan that brings engaging messaging, graphics, and functional elements together across every screen size and implement it.
Responsive Web Design
It’s normal to want to dive right into the aesthetics, but design is more about the process. Done right, every element has a unique purpose. The results are clear visuals that make it easy for users to find what they’re looking on any device.
Web Development
Using the latest web technologies, we develop websites and applications that can stand the test of time and adapt to the ever changing needs of the humanitarian community.
Custom-Built Mobile Applications
From streamlining remote data collection to better activity monitoring, mobile applications can provide more security and flexibility and better control over workflow. Our applications allow more people to access vital information remotely.
Featured Case Studies
Data Entry and Exploration Platform (DEEP)
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Data Entry and Exploration Platform (DEEP)
The Problem
Manual Entry Wasn’t Made For 21st Century Crises
Over the past 20 years, more than 7,300 natural disasters were recorded worldwide, affecting more than 4 billion people across the globe and generating $2.97 trillion in economic losses (UNDRR). The colossal effort to manually collect, track, translate, store, verify, and share critical data in the wake of these disasters has created overwhelming, and at times, insurmountable challenges for humanitarian responders— jeopardizing accurate decision making during a crisis and hindering global ability to prevent and abate future disasters. That’s where DEEP was born.
Secondary Data Review
Protection Monitoring
Participatory Assessments
Long-Term Storage
Open Source
Risk Analysis
The Solution
Remove Collaboration Barriers, Improve Response Time, Save More Lives
DEEP is a platform built with AI in mind to centralize, accelerate, and strengthen inter-agency response to humanitarian crises at national and field levels. The free, open source tool was developed by field responders in the wake of the devastating 2015 Nepal earthquakes, and has since become a go-to resource for leading global humanitarian organizations, including UNHCR, UNICEF, UN OCHA, and the IFRC. Today, DEEP hosts the largest analysis framework repository in the international humanitarian sector, hosting more than 85,000 carefully annotated response documents and connecting more than 3,000 expert users worldwide.
Since its inception, DEEP has been used to inform more than 1,800 international humanitarian projects whose scopes are estimated to impact more than 98 million people, including USAID’s response to COVID-19, ACAPS’s response to the Rohingya crisis, and UNHCR and IFRC’s response to the Venezuela migrations crisis. More than two-thirds of individuals in areas where DEEP is utilized earn less than $5 USD per day.
DEEP & COVID-19
Partners
June 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges to the ability of humanitarian actors to collect and analyze data in humanitarian responses around the world. In addition to worldwide stay at home orders that have constrained traditional responses, humanitarian organizations have faced five concrete challenges:
1
Data Comprehensiveness
2
Consistency and Depth
3
Analytical Value
4
Analytical Value
5
Time and Focus
To date, DEEP is active in coordinating COVID-19 responses in 14 countries across Central and Eastern Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Latin America. In the case of iMMAP, DEEP is centralizing COVID-19 response data collection among 464 humanitarian organizations spread across 6 target countries and operating alongside broader global efforts.
Through this partnership, DEEP has directly strengthened assessment and analysis capacities that continue to inform response and resource allocation for more than 41.6 million people in targeted areas.
How AI is Bettering Response To Internal Displacement
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How AI is Bettering Response To Internal Displacement
Director, IDMC
The Problem
More than 50 million people around the world are internally displaced. Forced by natural disasters and violence to flee their homes and often living in refugee-like conditions within their own country’s borders, the UNHCR has called internally displaced people “among the most vulnerable in the world.”Each year, thousands of internal displacement crises are tracked and analyzed by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)—the world’s most definitive source of data on internal displacement. Prior to partnering with Data Friendly Space (DFS), IDMC relied on a small IT team to collect and securely store reliable, timely, and longitudinal data on millions of displaced people from over 188 countries. This limited capacity held back the international community’s ability to respond to, report on, and ultimately, reduce the risk and impact of internal displacements across the globe.
The Solution
In the digital age, data is among the greatest tools to disaster management—when managed, secured, and utilized effectively. Overwhelmed by data inputs and the complexity of their data infrastructure, IDMC turned to DFS, a trusted partner to leading international humanitarian organizations across the globe.Since 2019, DFS has introduced multiple data management tools backed by AI to better process, store, and analyze internal displacement trends and enable faster, more robust humanitarian responses in the field. Highlights include:
| DFS Solution | Result |
| Efficient Media Monitoring | DFS helped to replace IDMC’s manual processing with IDETECT, a tool that analyzes thousands of global news sources daily through natural language processing. With IDETECT, IDMC now automates data collection on natural disaster and armed conflict displacements and can visually present the data to partners, funders, and decision makers worldwide. |
| Smart Reporting | DFS carried out a complete re-development of the main IDMC web application used to collect, analyze, and report on internal displacement data around the world. HELIX, a global information management system, is now pre-populated from the IDETECT natural language processing system, resulting in: 1. Reduced manual input and increased capacity for team members 2. More accurate and comprehensive data entry DFS’s data outputs are used to create reports like IDMC’s 2020 Global Report on Internal Displacement that are a primary resource to the United Nations and humanitarian leaders around the world. |
| 21st Century Security | DFS redesigned and deployed an entirely new infrastructure to securely store IDMC’s data from 188 countries and thousands of annual displacement events. DFS continues to provide around the clock security monitoring for IDMC’s online resources. |
| Seamless Integration | DFS managed the migration of data from thousands of past internal displacement events to a centralized reporting system. Upgrades are designed to increase the organization’s interoperability and dramatically reduce human error and the need for manual input. |
DFS’s data management tools, including Smart Reporting (Helix) and Efficient Media Monitoring (IDETECT), were utilized to produce multiple reports on the state of internal displacement during the COVID-19 pandemic, including Internal Displacement 2020: Mid-year update. The report analyzed 14.6 million new internal displacements across 127 countries in the first 6 months of 2020, giving the humanitarian community access to geolocalized data on the key priorities of people in need for a more accurate response on the ground.
DFS also built the data processing tools to enable detailed tracking and analysis of key variables impacting internally displaced people throughout COVID-19, including the virus’ impact to health, livelihoods, housing, education, and security. Learn more about IDMC’s response to COVID-19.
COVID-19 Situation Analysis
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COVID-19 Situation Analysis
| Crisis context/ scope of work | COVID-19 |
| Geographical scope | Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, DRC, Syria, Colombia, Nigeria |
| Project period | August 5, 2020 – July 31, 2021 |
| Donors/partners | iMMAP, USAID |
| Budget | USD 1,144,762 |
| # Leads: | 10,887 |
| # Entries: | 95,361 |
| Analysis framework used: | IMMAP/DFS Situation Analysis Framework |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated lives causing tremendous economic disruption worldwide. Those facing existing crises have felt the impacts of the pandemic most acutely. Humanitarian responders faced multiple challenges: humanitarian access was constrained activities were disruptedaid workers were unable to conduct regular monitoring and assessments to meet the growing needs of crisis-affected people Countries found themselves overwhelmed by unstructured, overlapping, or missing data. There was an emerging need among country-level humanitarian responders for timely, comprehensive, and structured data on the transmission of the virus and the humanitarian impact of COVID-19 in affected countries on sectoral and intersectoral levels. | To address this urgent need in the humanitarian community, DFS partnered with iMMAP, a partner NGO that provides information management services to humanitarian and development organizations. Together we designed and implemented a large-scale secondary data review and COVID-19 situation analysis project in six countries: Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, DRC, Syria, Colombia, and Nigeria. Monthly situational analyses were developed for each country, reporting on the evolution of ongoing situations such as quarantine effects, protection concerns, access to essential goods and services, market prices and more, to inform decision making. In addition to the reports, country-level aid responders were provided with weekly snapshots of available information at sub-national levels, summarized visually in country-specific dashboards. Hundreds of weekly snapshots were developed throughout the project period with DFS playing a crucial role in developing the analytical frameworks for the project and ensuring that all data (academia, news articles, social media, humanitarian reports, phone surveys, etc.) would be screened, captured, tagged, and structured in DEEP. Between September 2020 and February 2021, 74 publicly available country reports were published on the COVID-19 dashboard. |
Secondary Data Review – GIMAC
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Secondary Data Review – GIMAC
| Crisis context/scope of work | COVID-19 |
| Geographical scope | Global/Local (14 countries) |
| Project period | Nov 2020 – May 2021 |
| Donors/partners | Danish Refugee Council (DRC) |
| Budget | 338,000 USD |
| # Leads: | 761 |
| # Entries: | 26,317 |
| Analysis framework used: | GIMAC analytical framework |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| Since the beginning of the COVID-19 global pandemic, restrictions have limited the ability of humanitarian workers to collect primary data in crises-affected communities. The global humanitarian sector has relied on secondary data to analyze the pandemic’s effects on systems, impact on populations, coping capacities, operational environments, humanitarian conditions, and top-line priorities. However, local actors often lack the capacity to collate, organize, and structure data at the sectoral and intersectoral levels. This has resulted in duplications and non-comprehensive outcomes. Humanitarian country teams need support to improve their methodological approaches and strengthen analytical rigor to comply with the standards developed under the Grand Bargain Workstream 5 in preparation for the Humanitarian Needs Overviews (HNOs) and Humanitarian Response Planning (HRPs) 2021. |
The Global Information Management, Assessment, and Analysis Cell (GIMAC) was created as a multi-stakeholder initiative to coordinate, structure, collate, manage, and analyze COVID-19 related information and provide technical support to prioritized countries’ global decision making based on request. DFS provided support to selected countries, in partnership with the Danish Refugee Council, by creating structured data repositories, data exploration modules, and an assessment registry in DEEP to support the humanitarian country teams’ strategic planning (Humanitarian Needs Overviews and Humanitarian Response Plans). DEEP has been integrated into the services provided by the GIMAC, granting selected countries access to centralized data across geographical areas, affected groups, and sectors/sub-sectors, improving the accountability and transparency of collective evidence. |
2020 Humanitarian Needs Overview
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2020 Humanitarian Needs Overview
| Crisis context/scope of work | Humanitarian Response Plan processes |
| Geographical scope | Global/Local – Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan |
| Project period | July – Dec 2021 (ongoing) |
| Donors/partners | Danish Refugee Council (DRC) |
| Budget | USD 473,431 |
| # Leads: | 1,087 |
| # Entries: | 39,675 |
| Analysis framework used: | Joint Intersectoral Analytical Framework (JIAF), GIMAC analytical framework, IMMAP/DFS SDR framework |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| The humanitarian sector introduced the Joint Intersectoral Analytical Framework (JIAF) in 2020 to strengthen joint analysis across all sectors for the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) and Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP). While our Global Information Management, Assessment and Analysis Cell (GIMAC) project (Nov 2020 – Apr 2021) had provided secondary data analysis support to Inter-Cluster Coordination Groups across several countries, a review identified a deficiency at the end of the project. Countries lacked the capacity to undertake qualitative analysis of secondary data to inform the Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC), particularly the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) process. |
DFS launched an HNO Country Support Project with the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) to provide secondary data analysis to support the Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC), including the production of HNO and joint analysis processes. Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan were provided humanitarian analysis support, despite the instability brought about by government transitions in Afghanistan and South Sudan. Country Expert Groups were engaged by DFS Senior Analysts and provided secondary data review and analysis in DEEP. DFS and DRC generated first level analysis reports using an analytical framework, aligned to the JIAF framework, allowing analysts to respond to the differing timelines and capacity needs of each country. DFS provided joint analysis workshops, capacity building on DEEP, and custom analysis as requested by the Country Expert Groups. DEEP provided value to the Humanitarian Programme Cycle process, supporting the Grand Bargain workstream 5 and the JIAF‘s current guidelines to ensure better evidence-based strategic humanitarian response planning. |
Humanitarian Response in Urban Contexts – GRC
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Humanitarian Response in Urban Contexts – GRC
| Crisis context/scope of work | Humanitarian assistance in urban contexts |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | January 2021 – June 2021 |
| Donors/partners | German Red Cross (GRC) |
| Budget | USD 28,000 |
| # Leads: | 254 |
| # Entries: | 11,449 |
| Analysis framework used: | Urban Response Analytical Framework |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| Most refugees and internally displaced people gravitate to highly populated cities, creating unique threats and vulnerabilities. The result is that urban areas are increasingly the site of humanitarian crises exacerbated by natural hazards, violence, and armed conflict. Response frameworks for rural challenges translate poorly into urban contexts and so the humanitarian community is now adapting their response mechanisms to create more contextual responses forsome of the world’s most pressing needs. Accordingly, the German Red Cross (GRC) needed to bolster their understanding of the complexities of urban crises and specific requirements for response including processes, socio-cultural considerations, legal requirements, and the structural frameworks needed to inform priorities of the GRC in an urban context. GRC was searching for a well-structured, comprehensive, and adequately categorized information repository. | DFS structured existing reports for GRC and provided secondary data tagging and analysis in its Urban Response Analytical Framework. The partnership categorized information from multiple documents and sources, informing GRC’s implementation/testing of innovative approaches to urban knowledge management amid conflict and non-conflict urban situations. The project also tested the appropriateness and practicability of GRC’s urban framework for managing large amounts of data. Training and reference materials grew out of the project in an effort to standardize definitions, instructions, and examples for each pillar and sub-pillar of the GRC urban framework. This will allow for smooth updates of the project in the future. |
Equipping IFRC to Respond to the DRC Ebola Outbreak
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Equipping IFRC to Respond to the DRC Ebola Outbreak
| Crisis context | 10th Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo |
| Geographical scope | Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) |
| Project period | July – August 2019 |
| Donors/partners | International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) |
| Budget | USD 7,000 |
| # Leads: | 236 |
| # Entries: | 3,276 |
| Analysis framework used: | IFRC’s Analytical Framework – EVD Review |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| Immediately after the end of the 9th Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Ministry of Health declared the 10th epidemic of the Ebola virus disease (EVD) in North Kivu had begun. 2018 marked the biggest Ebola outbreak in the country’s history and the second-largest ever in recorded history. The impact of the disease was exacerbated by the fact that it was taking place in an active conflict zone. By the time the outbreak ended in June 2020, there were 3470 cases, 2287 deaths, and 1171 survivors. To evaluate its response measures and address ongoing activities, IFRC sought to analyze information from multiple sources to evaluate the decisions taken in the crisis. The Federation needed to know if the organization had scaled its response to the crisis effectively, and positioned itself to rapidly address humanitarian needs in key Ebola-response sectors (Safe and Dignified Burials, Infection Prevention and Control, Community Engagement and Accountability including Risk Communication). | DFS helped IFRC structure information from multiple secondary documents and sources based on a comparative analysis gathered from the previous Ebola outbreak. The project included both of DRC’s affected areas – North Kivu and Equateur province. Tagging and secondary data analysis of information from a variety of sources including appeals, operations updates, minutes of Joint Task Forces, field assessments and reports, minutes of coordination meetings enabled IFRC to document their findings and recommendations for future actions. The organization was able to evaluate timeliness, efficiency, effectiveness, and the coordination of its response in comparison to past events. This allowed the team to confirm if the decisions taken by the Federation positioned the organization effectively, providing the right process to scale up operations, and to rapidly address humanitarian needs in key Ebola-response sectors. |
Cash Assistance for Refugees – IFRC
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Cash Assistance for Refugees – IFRC
| Crisis context | Syrian refugee crisis |
| Geographical scope | Turkey |
| Project period | From May 2021 – May 2022 (ongoing) |
| Donors/partners | International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) |
| Budget | USD 76,000 |
| # Leads: | 3,232 |
| # Entries: | 38,708 |
| Analysis framework used: | IFRC’s Analytical Framework |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| Turkey hosts more than 4 million refugees, many of whom are from Syria and fleeing a ten-year-long conflict. More than 1.5 million of the refugees qualify for the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) program, led by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Turkish Red Crescent Society, which qualifies refugees for emergency cash assistance provided by the EU. Project success requires an understanding of the refugees’ context, consistent sectoral and inter-sectoral country-level situation analysis, and near-constant data analysis. But data and information are generally scattered across different sources of information which existing data review tools are not capable of managing efficiently. This leads to data collection challenges across geographical areas, affected groups, or sub-sectors. |
By creating a comprehensive multi-year repository of structured and coded data (qualitative and quantitative) from identified sources in DEEP, DFS provides project partners access to all sectoral and inter-sectoral information. This allows them to evaluate unmet needs and analyze underlying factors categorized in an IFRC-designed analysis framework. The result is a comprehensive understanding of the needs of refugees allowing IFRC to develop systematic review of its programmes. DFS has provided a standard level of categorization and quality control for all captured information, in line with global standards and cluster taxonomies, in an effort to reduce the risk of miscategorization. Project activities include assessing the depth and representativeness of available data, mapping the information landscape, and rating information gaps through an improved assessment registry to support decision making in terms of prioritizing and helping create targeted needs assessments. |
Venezuelan Refugee and Migrant Crisis – UNHCR
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Venezuelan Refugee and Migrant Crisis – UNHCR
| Crisis context | Venezuela – mixed migration |
| Geographical scope | Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, México, Nicaragua, Panamá, Perú, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela |
| Project period | July 2019 – June 2022 |
| Donors/partners | United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) |
| Budget | USD 250,990 |
| # Leads: | 4,684 |
| # Entries: | 42,884 |
| Analysis framework used: | Situational Analysis UNHCR Framework |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| Over 5 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants live abroad, having fled violence, threats, and lack of essential supplies and services. Latin America and the Caribbean have maintained a largely open-border policy. However, with more than 5,000 daily arrivals, national capacities in host communities are overstretched. UNHCR has been coordinating a region-wide approach to cope with the scale of the influx. Joint analysis and reinforced inter-agency tools are essential to assess the humanitarian conditions of affected populations and establish ‘country profiles’ to scale up operational impact. This requires information on mixed movements and unmet needs to be captured, categorized into a commonly agreed analysis framework, and made available to humanitarian actors. UNHCR needs very specific data to develop tailored assessment strategies at the national and regional levels to ensure humanitarian needs are identified and covered. | In collaboration with a mixed movement coordination platform, DFS has supported the development and adoption of UNHCR’s situational analysis framework to cover all information needs, ensuring compatibility with other ongoing initiatives in the Americas region. DFS is focusing on identifying and extracting information on unmet humanitarian needs in the countries affected by the Venezuelan refugees and migrant crisis in DEEP. Working with its teams of Spanish, English, and Portuguese-speaking taggers throughout the project, DFS ensures global standards and taxonomies are applied while identifying key priorities and tracking sources of information. The result is an ability to create vital snapshots, including situation analysis, for each affected country, informing country plans, interagency processes such as HNO/HRP, and the Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plans (RMRP). To strengthen local capacities and facilitate the takeover of the secondary data review in DEEP, DFS has organized remote training and developed online tutorials for national focal points, supporting the project’s sustainability. |
Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments – IFRC
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Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments – IFRC
| Crisis context/scope of work | Community-based disaster preparedness programmes |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | February – June 2019 |
| Donors/partners | International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) |
| Budget | USD 20,000 |
| # Leads: | 89 |
| # Entries: | 1,551 |
| Analysis framework used: | IFRC VCA analytical framework in DEEP |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| The Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (VCA) is a participatory investigative process developed by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to enable communities to become more resilient to natural hazards by assessing and analyzing the risks faced and allowing them to identify actions. VCA allows Red Cross Red Crescent (RCRC) National Societies to explore the source of risks, identify the most affected communities and strengthen capacities. RCRC National Societies upload and access reports via the EVCA repository, providing vulnerability and capacity assessments at community levels across countries. Because the VCA tool benefits from near-constant development to manage its growing number of reports, IFRC sought a more-automated process to quickly scan VCA/EVCA reports to extract and visualize the required data to identify trends and gaps. | DFS provided support to IFRC to manually curate and structure existing RCRC reports into an analytical framework in DEEP allowing IFRC to further develop their assessment tools. Today, DFS supports IFRC to develop a system of extracting and visualizing the necessary information in VCA/EVCA reports in the EVCA repository to get snapshots of key data regarding main hazards, exposures, vulnerability, capacity and risks for communities concerned. After piloting the project in the Philippines, DFS partnered with IFRC on a global roll out by finalizing the list of relevant criteria, generating a representative sample of documents to tag, and coordinating the tagging of the reports leading to more effective disaster risk management. |
Training and Secondary Data Analysis Capacity Building – IFRC
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Training and Secondary Data Analysis Capacity Building – IFRC
| Crisis context/area of work | Building assessment capacities of humanitarian responders |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | March 2020 |
| Donors/partners | International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) |
| Budget | USD 15,000 |
| Analysis framework used: | IFRC VCA analytical framework in DEEP |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| The International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) is one of the most prominent users of DEEP which allows humanitarian responders to react faster and reach further by automating time-consuming data collection and analysis-related tasks in humanitarian action. IFRC has multiple projects involved with DEEP, such as the Ebola Outbreak Analysis, the secondary data review and analysis for the ESSN project in Turkey, and the analysis of IFRC’s Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (VCA) reports, helping crisis affected communities become more resilient to natural hazards. To support IFRC’s in-house capacities for secondary data review and analysis in the DEEP platform, it asked DFS to design and implement a series of capacity building trainings. | DFS developed an online, blended learning program for IFRC, containing e-learning modules and tailored exercises, allowing IFRC colleagues to more effectively utilize DEEP as one of its go-to data platforms. The learning program has allowed IFRC to strengthen the secondary data review and analysis skills of staff, develop bespoke analytical frameworks, create data visualizations, and explore the use of natural language processing. As a result of the partnership, IFRC is more able to support tailored responses in various humanitarian emergency contexts, analyze risks, anticipate needs, and address the often overwhelming amount of data, ultimately improving the efficiency of humanitarian programs across the globe and helping optimize resources. |
Media Monitoring Through IOM’s Missing Migrant Project
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Media Monitoring Through IOM’s Missing Migrant Project
| Crisis context/scope of work | Missing migrants, refugees and asylum seekers worldwide |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | Jan – March 2021 |
| Donors/partners | International Organization for Migration (IOM) |
| Budget | USD 36,000 |
| Technologies used: | Django, Postgres, PostGIS, React, Mapbox, D3.js |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| The International Organization for Migration (IOM), a leading intergovernmental organization in the field of migration, launched the Missing Migrants Project (MMP) in 2014 to collect data on incidents in which migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers have disappeared or died. The resulting database is the only existing open-access database tracking migration deaths on the global level. The IOM system relies on data sources such as official records, national authorities, IOM field missions, NGOs reports, surveys and interviews of migrants, social media, and media reports worldwide. However, MMP’s media monitoring tools were unable to identify and return relevant media reports and recognize multilingual information, resulting in severe limitations and inaccuracies in MMP’s data and information repository. | IOM turned to DFS to develop a custom-tailored media monitoring and search tool to improve the breadth of media monitoring and the relevance of results returned through a partnership with IDMC’s IDETECT. The platforms were built to analyze thousands of daily global news sources through natural language processing and automated data collection. Using IDETECT, DFS delivered an information extraction tool for IOM that provides source information, incident cause data, tracks the number of lives lost, location information across multiple languages. The platform is driven by natural language processing technology which supports Google Chrome integration through an extension that efficiently integrates with the MMP platform. IDETECT supports IOM’s existing data review systems. |
GO Platform and COVID-19 Dashboards – IFRC
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GO Platform and COVID-19 Dashboards – IFRC
| Crisis context/scope of work | Connecting information on global emergency needs with the right response |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | Jan 2019 – ongoing |
| Donors/partners | International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) |
| Budget | USD 300,000 till Jan 2022 |
| Technologies used: | Django, Postgres, PostGIS, React, Mapbox, D3.js |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| The GO platform was launched in 2018 as part of IFRC‘s modernization and digitization of disaster information. The system supports Red Cross Red Crescent Societies worldwide allowing IFRC to make disaster information universally accessible and helpful to all IFRC responders. In 2019, IFRC needed additional features on the GO platform such as information about which national societies were doing what interventions and where. An initial ‘Who does What, Where’ or the ‘3w’ tool had been developed but IFRC needed a more centralized platform that supported more information in multiple languages. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated IFRC’s needs to provide program progress and support decision-making. IFRC needed technical support to structure and visualize data in a user-friendly way. | DFS has been providing technical support for IFRC’s GO platform since 2019. In partnership with IFRC’s Information Management team, DFS worked as a developer to optimize the 3w module of the GO platform to allow synchronized data input and data visualization using business intelligence software including Tableau or PowerBI. To improve access to COVID-19 emergency information, DFS supported the development of COVID-19 dashboards. The resulting visualizations created a more visually engaging landing page, organizing critical data in a more usable format that supports the automatic translation of content from English into Spanish, French, and Arabic (IFRC’s official languages). DFS rolled out digital wayfinding across multiple languages including specific navigational features, key figure references, and crisis summaries. |
Environmental Assessment Tool (NEAT+) – UNEP
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Environmental Assessment Tool (NEAT+) – UNEP
| Crisis context/area of work | Environmental sustainability in humanitarian programme planning |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | Apr 2019 – ongoing |
| Donors/partners | United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) |
| Budget | USD 250,000 |
| Technologies used: | Django, Postgres, PostGIS, React, Mapbox, D3.js, Kobo |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| Environmental issues are often underlying or contributing factors to humanitarian crises. Similarly, a crisis can negatively affect the environment, increasing the risk and vulnerability of affected populations. It is essential to provide humanitarian responders with the necessary tools and resources to quickly identify issues of environmental concern before designing longer-term emergency or recovery interventions. A consortium including UNEP, OCHA, USAID, UNHCR, NRC, IUCN, WWF, and others (the Coordination of Assessments for Environment in Humanitarian Action Joint Initiative) needed a rapid and straightforward project-level environmental screening tool which would be freely accessible to all humanitarian responders across the globe. | The UNEP/OCHA Joint Environment Unit worked with DFS to launch the Nexus Environmental Assessment Tool (NEAT+). The NEAT+ combines contextual environmental information with site-specific data while categorizing environmental issues into low, medium, and high levels of concern. DFS provided technical support for developing the web application, its data infrastructure, and data security. An additional Rural NEAT+ (R-NEAT+) has been designed for informal/formal camp settings or rural non-camp settings using Kobo Toolbox and Excel to complete the analysis. Guidance documents are provided in English, French, and Spanish. DFS continues to provide significant updates, including an urban adaptation, on a lighter, cloud-based platform (U-NEAT+) in response to feedback from various stakeholders. |
Media Monitoring Platform – IDMC
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Media Monitoring Platform – IDMC
| Crisis context/area of work | Global internal displacement |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | May 2021 |
| Donors/partners | Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) |
| Budget | USD 10,800 |
| Technologies used: | Django, Postgres, PostGIS, React, Mapbox, D3.js, Kobo |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) is one of the world’s most prominent sources of data and analysis on internal displacement. Its platforms support humanitarian and development actions by providing vital information about the movement of vulnerable populations. The primary sources of information for IDMC are governments, the United Nations, international organizations, NGOs, and international media. But collecting data on internal displacement is challenged by incomplete data. IDMC utilized a manual monitoring system until IDETECT was developed in 2017. Since then, IDETECT has helped IDMC analyze thousands of global news sources daily through natural language processing, automating data collection. As data collection increased, IDMC faced a series of scaling challenges including the filtering and visualization of data at the very time that it required additional capacity to manage an ever growing data set. | DFS worked with IDMC to develop additional IDETECT features including interactive dashboards to allow analysts to monitor internal displacement news reports more effectively. The resulting dashboards present collected data on a dynamic map with tabular interfaces for data selection, helping IDMC complete its data tagging faster. The system also provides data visualizations and trend representations more efficiently allowing the humanitarian sector to better evaluate the impact of natural disasters and armed conflict. The result is the presentation of information in a simple, comprehensive, and understandable way for partners, funders, and decision-makers worldwide. |
Tracking Gender-Based Violence – UNFPA
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Tracking Gender-Based Violence – UNFPA
| Crisis context/area of work | Gender-Based Violence |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | Jan 2019 – ongoing |
| Donors/partners | United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) |
| Budget | USD 38,385 |
| Technologies used: | Drupal |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| The Gender-Based Violence Area of Responsibility (GBV AoR) website is the collective initiative of several non-governmental organizations, UN agencies, academics, and other actors. The unique partnership seeks to ensure life-saving, predictable, and effective gender based violence (GBV) prevention is at the center of natural disaster and humanitarian crisis responses. The GBV AoR, led by UNFPA, supports GBV Coordinators in cluster structures by providing an integrated platform for stakeholders to seek guidance through relevant reports, tools, and resources. As activities and collected data have rapidly increased, the collective’s initial website was no longer suitable to organize relevant resources for global partners. | DFS proposed a more modern look and feel for the GBV AoR’s website and developed a more durable technical framework for future growth. The new website provides functional elements across every screen size including desktop, tablet, and mobile. DFS ensured the integration of essential functionalities of the GBV AoR including a dedicated space for field support, help desk, communities of practice, and a library of critical resources, tools, reports, and events calendar. DFS provides continuous support for the GBV AoR with ongoing maintenance of the new website. |
Women’s Participation Project (WPP) Website – IOM
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Women’s Participation Project (WPP) Website – IOM
| Crisis context/scope of work | Displaced women’s participation in humanitarian programming |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | July – September 2020 |
| Donors/partners | International Organization for Migration (IOM) |
| Budget | USD 29,239 |
| Technologies used: | Drupal, D3, jQuery, MariaDB |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| The International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) Cluster, and the Women’s Refugee Commission launched the Women’s Participation Project (WPP) in 2016 to help CCCM professionals better share best practices at displacement sites. More than 21 million women and girls uprooted by conflict and violence worldwide live in camps or camp-like settings. Women’s meaningful participation in decision-making and camp governance has proven to result in better humanitarian responses, reduced gender-based violence, and accountability toward affected populations. The WPP needed a comprehensive repository of resources to equip stakeholders with training materials, assessment tools, guidelines, and other relevant resources. | The Women’s Participation Project (WPP)’s enlarging scope to support CCCM practitioners needed a modern, user-friendly site where stakeholders could rapidly access training and resources. IOM partnered with DFS to redesign the WPP website, which was unable to accommodate essential requirements. DFS deployed an entirely new website infrastructure utilizing a modern layout and resource platform. An interactive dashboard provides an overview of activities and achievement, informing decision-makers. The website helps raise greater awareness of the WPP project among humanitarian practitioners, supporting accountability and women’s empowerment in humanitarian programs globally. |
Information Management System – Transparency International
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Information Management System – Transparency International
Programme Lead, Advocacy and Legal Advice Centers (ALACs) Transparency International
| Crisis context/scope of work | Fight against corruption globally |
| Geographical scope | 27 countries across the globe |
| Project period | August 2019 – September 2021 |
| Donors/partners | Transparency International |
| Budget | USD 187,000 |
| Technologies used: | Salesforce, Salesforce Apex, Python |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| Transparency International (TI) works to end global corruption in partnership with government, business, and civil society. In early 2009, the TI Secretariat in Berlin (TI-S) began utilizing a database to provide its national chapters with a case management system to manage corruption information securely and efficiently. Today, TI’s successful program requires an updated data platform and the support of a more secure CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution. As with most growing organizations, TI’s technologies need regular updating to allow for better digital records management and client communications. | DFS led TI through a detailed consultative process, including interviewing national chapters, to gather business intelligence on the technical requirements needed for a more suitable database. Ultimately, TI and DFS selected a new environment for the information management system. DFS developed the roll-out roadmap, designed the prototype, and provided testing and training. The new information management system now serves twenty national chapters of TI, allowing offices to process data, information, and documentation faster and more securely and to create analysis and manage client complaints and cases. |
Tracking Internally Displaced Persons Using AI – IDMC
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Tracking Internally Displaced Persons Using AI – IDMC
| Crisis context/scope of work | Internal displacement globally |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | November 2019 – December 2020 |
| Donors/partners | Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) |
| Budget | USD 327,000 |
| Technologies used: | Django, Postgres, PostGIS, React, Mapbox, D3.js |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| More than 50 million people throughout the world are internally displaced. UNHCR has called internally displaced people “among the most vulnerable in the world.” Thousands of internal displacement crises are tracked and analyzed by IDMC, one of the world’s most definitive sources of internal displacement data. IDMC previously relied on a small IT team to collect and securely store reliable, timely, and longitudinal data on millions of displaced people from over 188 countries, but the vast amount of collected data created challenges for the team. Their limited capacity slowed the international community’s ability to respond to, and ultimately reduce, the effects of internal displacements across all continents. | IDMC partnered with DFS to introduce multiple data management tools, aided by AI to better process, store, and analyze internal displacement trends enabling faster, more robust humanitarian responses from the field. The partnership replaced IDMC’s manual processes with IDETECT, a tool that analyzes thousands of global news sources each day by utilizing natural language processing. DFS redeveloped IDMC web applications to collect, analyze, and report internal displacement data more efficiently. The resulting smart reporting had a significant role in reporting on internal displacement during the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more |
Data Visualization System – DIFD Nepal
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Data Visualization System – DIFD Nepal
| Crisis context/scope of work: | Evidence for Development (E4D), Nepal |
| Geographical scope | Nepal |
| Project period | July 2018 |
| Donors/partners | DFID Nepal |
| Budget | USD 1,200 |
| Technologies used: | Mapbox |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO – formerly DFID) supports Nepal’s Government with a range of complex development challenges, including generating data to use evidence more effectively in policy making through its Evidence for Development (E4D) programme. To support this work, DFID Nepal needed to establish a system to harmonize data from various implementing partners while ensuring data generated through programme management and evidence gathering were used to make better-informed decisions. | DFS supported the development of a highly interactive, map-centric data visualization platform pulling from various DFID partner organizations. An infographic storage center and a glossary describing secondary data sources were integrated into a new Data Visualization System (DVS) using dashboards to display socio-economic, infrastructure-related, and project output datasets over maps and charts. DFS updated the DVS platform with major analytical features most recently in 2019. |
Recovery Reporting after Earthquake in Nepal – CRS
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Recovery Reporting after Earthquake in Nepal – CRS
| Crisis context/scope of work | 2015 Nepal Earthquake |
| Geographical scope | Nepal |
| Project period | July 2018 – Feb 2019 |
| Donors/partners | The Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Nepal |
| Budget | USD 7,500 |
| Technologies used: | Python, django |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| Two 2015 earthquakes struck Nepal leaving nearly 2.6 million people in urgent need of humanitarian relief and reconstruction support. Catholic Relief Nepal (CRS) carried out essential emergency response activities through Caritas Nepal, supporting more than 34,000 families. CRS is hosting the Housing Recovery and Reconstruction Platform (HRRP) alongside NSET and DFID as part of its longer term recovery work. HRRP provides coordination, information management services, and technical advice to the Government of Nepal and other critical stakeholders in the earthquake recovery process. To facilitate its work and reporting to partners, CRS needed a tool to update Palikas (municipalities) on the overall reconstruction and recovery status of earthquake-affected Palikas. | In 2018, CRS Nepal partnered with DFS to develop a custom tool to automatically generate Palika Profiles in PDF formats for the HRRP, integrating inputs from excel and image files. The new tool enabled HRRP to get a clear overview of recovery milestones such as the number of destroyed houses rebuilt. The project highlighted where assistance had been delivered or still was needed. The progress in each Palika is drawn from data in excel, uses map visualizations, and presents data as regularly updated infographics. DFS built the tool to be multilingual to support Nepali and English languages. |
Open Government Web Application – Congo Research Group (GEC) / NYU
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Open Government Web Application – Congo Research Group (GEC) / NYU
| Crisis context/scope of work | Government accountability |
| Geographical scope | Democratic Republic of Congo |
| Project period | September 2020 – January 2022 |
| Donors/partners | Congo Study Group (GEC) |
| Budget | USD 29,111 |
| Technologies used: | Django, Postgres, PostGIS, React |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| The Congo Research Group (GEC) promotes independent and rigorous research to better understand the causes of violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Their programs seek to empower Congolese citizens to hold individuals and systems more accountable. In 2020, GEC wanted to create Talatala (“mirror” in the Lingala language), a platform to promote government accountability in the DRC. The Talalala project sought to understand how accountability works in DRC’s government institutions and to identify influential persons within Congolese politics. GEC needed partners who would launch a Talatala system that was dialed into UI/UX needs and to provide a secure web application that could systematically observe, follow, and share findings publicly on the activities of Parliamentarians and the Government in the DRC. | GEC turned to the global software teams at DFS and BoldCode to get expert technical services for launching the Talatala web application. DFS provided leadership in the development phase of Talatala’s creation, finding the best technical solutions for the platform needs. The result is a website that promotes open government and accountability. Making all editorial content available in French and English is still in process. |
Global Internal Displacement Database (GIDD) – IDMC
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Global Internal Displacement Database (GIDD) – IDMC
| Crisis context/scope of work | Internal displacement |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | May 2021 |
| Donors/partners | Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) |
| Budget | USD 10,800 |
| Technologies used: | Django, Postgres, PostGIS, React, Mapbox, D3.js |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) collects data from various sources and aggregates them into a series of internal platforms for structuring and verifying the movements of vulnerable populations. Validated data is displayed on IDMC’s website and through the Global Report on Internal Displacement. To help users navigate through large amounts of data, IDMC needed to develop an interactive platform that provided easy navigation and access to reports and customized datasets. | DFS designed and launched the Global Internal Displacement Database (GIDD) for IDMC. The platform summarizes all of IDMC’s data since 2008 and allows users to review annual flagship reports and displacement data highlights and maps. DFS developed query builders (conflict & violence and disaster-related) to enable users to explore displacement risk metrics through the Global Displacement Risk Model. |
Informing Humanitarian Decisions through DEEP
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Informing Humanitarian Decisions through DEEP
| Crisis context/scope of work | Grand Bargain workstream 5/ Joint and impartial needs assessments |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | Oct 2020 — Sept 2022 |
| Donors/partners | Danish Refugee Council (DRC) |
| Budget | USD 628,645 |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| Under the Grand Bargain on Needs Assessments Workstream, humanitarian responders are strengthening cross-sectoral, methodologically sound, and impartial assessments with data utilization. TheDEEP.io was specifically designed to apply methodological and technical approaches to data in response to the Grand Bargain on Needs Assessment. With more than 1,400 registered DEEP users, the evolving platform is meeting technical milestones for data protection, stability, and reliability across a variety of responders. However, to achieve the broader goal of ensuring more comprehensive, accurate, and systematic situation analysis in crisis-affected countries the platform needs to continue to develop. Continuous platform development is essential to ensure its ability to adequately scale to the variety and volume of secondary data review needs in the humanitarian sector. | The DEEP Governing Board has partnered with DRC and DFS to carry out continued development with funding from USAID and other DFS partners. Ongoing technical improvements are being implemented on DEEP in an effort to make data collation and analysis more efficient. DFS is implementing natural language tools to enable automation. DRC/DFS have been working with the Information Management Working Groups and Assessment Working Groups in the ten countries to receive training and support to use existing secondary data for strategic planning (HNOs, HRPs, RRPs, etc.). The project ensures Grand Bargain principles are embedded in countries’ strategic planning processes, thus promoting collaboration and analytical rigor in situation analysis. DFS serves as the technical lead for the DEEP project. |
Emergency Response Questionnaire Builder – IFRC
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Emergency Response Questionnaire Builder – IFRC
| Crisis context/scope of work | Humanitarian needs assessment processes |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | August – December 2019 |
| Donors/partners | International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) |
| Budget | USD 21,540 |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| Each year, aid responders carry out 10-15 large-scale field surveys after humanitarian emergencies to assess the needs of crisis-affected populations. The challenge is that assessment processes are often slow and imperfect, taking weeks to design and implement. A 2017 study showed that coordinated needs assessments covered less than 50% of information needs in humanitarian settings over the previous 17 years. IFRC was seeking to strengthen the capacities of the Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies to support needs assessments in emergencies. The Federation’s response to Tropical Cyclone Idai in Mozambique highlighted the need for sectoral consensus around assessment questions and so they needed a questionnaire builder that would allow analysts to build and manage surveys at both the county and field levels. | DFS created an online platform for IFRC enabling assessment coordinators and information analysts to quickly derive questionnaires from pre-established analytical frameworks. The solution allows IFRC responders to connect to the platform during an emergency, select the framework they need, and automatically generate an analysis and data collection plan. This allows IFRC to reduce the development burden on users. DFS built the platform with connections to other data collection tools like KoBo and also feeds the data into DEEP. The project leverages open-source technology to increase the speed and partial-automation of emergency needs assessments. |
Improving Emergency Needs Assessments – UNHCR
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Improving Emergency Needs Assessments – UNHCR
| Crisis context/scope of work | Humanitarian needs assessment processes |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | October – December 2019 |
| Donors/partners | UNHCR |
| Budget | USD 10,540 |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| UNHCR utilizes DEEP for qualitative data analysis in a variety of humanitarian emergency contexts. Sometimes they need specific features in DEEP to support secondary data analysis and emergency needs assessments. In 2019, UNHCR needed improved functionality in DEEP such as modified text selection and easier project management when tagging data in DEEP. | DFS partnered with UNHCR to define their need to simplify data tagging and categorization. We were able to modify the platform’s work flows to allow users to more consistently maintain data tagging associations with qualitative data in DEEP. DFS also developed features to enable project administrators to create a set of labels to simplify data management as well as a widget to make adding free text to the DEEP platform more efficient. |
Hosting and Maintenance of theDEEP.io
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Hosting and Maintenance of theDEEP.io
| Crisis context/scope of work | Humanitarian data review and analysis through DEEP |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | April – December 2020 |
| Donors/partners | International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) |
| Budget | USD 20,000 |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| DFS has been DEEP’s principal platform developer since its inception in 2015. The DEEP Board needed a partner who could continuously develop and maintain the platform for global users in the humanitarian sector. | DFS has been a leading voice for the adoption of a centralized data system for the humanitarian sector and as technical lead, it has ensured the uptime and functionality of DEEP would be modern and secure. DFS has instituted a serverless infrastructure to reduce hosting costs and provide a more stable, performant, and scalable platform. DFS carries out regular maintenance and recently launched a major software update to the system. |
DEEP Feature Development – OHCHR
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DEEP Feature Development – OHCHR
| Crisis context/scope of work | Humanitarian data review and analysis through DEEP |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | 18-01-2019 – 31-03-2019 |
| Donors/partners | UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) |
| Budget | 40,850 USD |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| In early 2019, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) needed to develop custom-tailored features in DEEP to allow its Emergency Response Teams to capture, process and analyze human rights data more effectively. For wanted to develop features that enable users to have analytical frameworks and projects in DEEP that supported strict privacy protocols because of the data being handled. Additionally, Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology was needed for OHCHR to efficiently process predictive tagging. | DFS provides a significant update to the DEEP system enabling OHCHR, and all DEEP users, to create private analytical frameworks and projects which would restrict data access to a specific group of people. We utilized data encryption protocols after completing a rigorous security audit and integrated the European Media Monitoring (EMM) model in DEEP. This allows users to pull custom feeds more securely from EMM into global projects to inform trend analysis and risk assessments in specific countries. |
Local Data Stories Project – IFRC
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Local Data Stories Project – IFRC
| Crisis context/scope of work | Accountability for crisis affected population |
| Geographical scope | Global |
| Project period | May – June 2021 |
| Donors/partners | International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) |
| Budget | USD 18,000 |
| Problem | DFS’ solution |
| The International Federation of the Red Cross Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian network with over 160,000 branches and millions of volunteers. To highlight stories from national communities, IFRC initiated the Local Data Stories Project in 2019, allowing local communities to inform programming. The project extracts information from social media, local news articles, and strategic documents from a Federation-wide database. After prototyping the project in selected countries, IFRC needed a technical partner to conduct a technical review of existing functions and systems before the global rollout. | DFS evaluated the potential of expanding the Local Data Stories Project to include all 192 National Societies by conducting a desktop review with members, evaluating the site’s code/algorithm settings, and ensuring stakeholder feedback reviews from all relevant parties. DFS provided IFRC with strategic advice to support the next stage of its beta project including recommendation on how open source code could be integrated with other internal and external tools for IFRC. DFS suggested a series of higher-level organizational recommendations on how to best integrate and use data across IFRC while helping to facilitate the global roll-out of the project. |
Data Literacy Lead, International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent Societies
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Karin Maasel to Lead Data Friendly Space
The Board of Directors of Data Friendly Space (DFS) has announced that Karin Maasel will lead the organization in its next phase of growth as Executive Director.
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