American Red Cross West Africa Project: 7,000 Border Communities

The American Red Cross mapped over 7,000 communities within a 15-kilometer buffer of the Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone borders between February and October 2016. Data includes vulnerability surveys conducted via motorbike visits and detailed infrastructure mapping for 100 selected communities.

Use Cases

• Analyzing regional health accessibility by mapping the locations of health facilities relative to community centers
• Assessing water security using the coordinates and status of water points collected during detailed mapping
• Modeling humanitarian risk based on the vulnerability survey responses provided by village leaders

Strengths

• Physical verification of 7,000 communities via motorbike visits
• High-resolution mapping of 100 communities including every water point and health facility
• Availability in multiple GIS and statistical formats including SHP, GeoJSON, and Stata

Limitations

• Data was collected in 2016 and may not reflect current infrastructure status
• Geographic coverage is limited to a 15km buffer zone around specific international borders
• Detailed infrastructure mapping is only available for a subset of 100 communities

Provenance

Source

American Red Cross

Collection Method

Surveyed via motorbike visits and village leader interviews

Time Range

2016-02 to 2016-10

Freshness

Static dataset from 2016 mapping effort.

Geography

Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone borders