UNDP Eyes Ukraine’s Damaged Buildings With Crowdsourcing, Mobile App

Aida Akl at VOA TECHtonics: “The crisis that plunged east Ukraine into war in November 2013 has damaged or destroyed critical infrastructure and limited access to areas caught up in fighting between Ukraine’s government forces and pro-Russian rebels. In order to assess damage, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) turned to crowdsourcing to help restore social infrastructure as part of a United Nations, European Union and World Bank Recovery and Peacebuilding Assessment for Eastern Ukraine….
Using an interactive map, ReDonbass, and a mobile app (Android and iOS), people of Donetsk and Lugansk regions can report damaged homes, hospitals, schools, kindergartens or libraries.

The easy-to-use interactive tool allows any person with a mobile phone and access to the Internet to download the most accurate data about the building in its location, photographs of the damage, and the status of the recovery phase. After that, the Ukrainian government and international donors will use the data to better plan reconstruction.
Information from the map will contribute to an ongoing Recovery and Peacebuilding Assessment for Eastern Ukraine. UNDP is part of the assessment that brings the United Nations, the European Union and the World Bank Group together to analyze the impact of the conflict and offer recommendations for short-term recovery and peacebuilding over the next two years….The map has also proven to be very useful for the experts from the Ukrainian Government and a recently launched UNDP-Government of Japan project aiming to restore critical infrastructure for social care and services. They [are] using it to identify schools, orphanages, elderly homes, and social services centers that need to be restored and rebuilt first….(More)”.