Electronic maps launched

Electronic maps, which could be vital to humanitarian monitoring and planning, were launched in Bujumbura on Wednesday, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported. "In humanitarian situations such as Burundi, GIS [Geographic Information Service] technology provides an excellent tool for tracking population displacements, returnees and monitoring general social trends," Raquel Wexler, head of UNICEF's Burundi Planning Project, said. The maps are being made available in Burundi, for the first time, for use by planners in the government, UN agencies and NGOs. These documents will enable planners to monitor social indicators and trends at the provincial, communal, "colline (Hill) and subcolline" levels, UNICEF reported. "There is a great deal of demand from the government and UN agency partners for these maps and we are please to finally make them available, at no cost and for humanitarian purposes," Wexler said. The Population Department of the Interior Ministry and UNICEF Burundi's Planning Project launched Version 1 of the electronic administrative maps of the country "at the fifth sub-national level". Present at the ceremony were government officials, the UN and donor representatives. UNICEF said the next phase of its GIS project would focus on updating and collecting information on social infrastructure, in collaboration with government and UN partners. For example, Wexler said, by obtaining the location of schools nationwide, a comprehensive database could be built to analyse comparative data and trends in school enrolment or girls education at the community level. "We can also better understand the geographic distribution of events - such as mine victims, or recent population displacements," she said.