Interactive Community Mapping: Between Empowerment and Effectiveness
of community volunteers collecting trash all need different types of mapping data. The ICM process should be designed to satisfy the needs of all these potential stakeholders. Civil Society Capacity The technical creation of an interactive community map is typically the easiest part of ICM. In order to ensure that the project will benefit local residents and that the map will be used meaningfully, local civil society should play a key role in the process. In fact, local CSOs and social activists are the main stakeholders of any effective ICM endeavor, taking responsibility for community outreach and engagement efforts, helping to recruit and engage community mappers, arranging the logistics for the ICM process, publicizing and distributing the map once it is complete, and using it for their own activities. The design of an ICM process should therefore be closely aligned with the interests, incentives, and activities of CSOs that are already active in the community. Government Cooperation Since local government typically has ultimate responsibility for the provision of public services, government cooperation with the ICM process is pivotal for the impact and sustainability of the map. Based on mapped information, public officials may allocate additional resources to particular concerns or reallocate funds that have already been assigned in order to cope better with community problems. Public officials’ endorsement of the ICM process can also bring on board other stakeholders who can help to distribute and use the map when it is complete. Further, the ICM process can benefit public officials themselves, as they may gain new information about the conditions and concerns of communities under their jurisdiction. Public officials do not always recognize these benefits. Convincing them to engage with the process and aligning the ICM with government’s interests and priorities are therefore important tasks that are likely to yield positive results. Incentives to Participate By definition, community mapping requires the engagement of the local community. However, the incentives of community members to participate in ICM are tricky. First, communicating the benefits of ICM to communities with low technological capabilities can be challenging. Since the resulting maps are largely available online and most residents of poor communities do not have stable access to the Internet, they do not necessarily see the value of the map. Moreover, local residents are intimately familiar with the geography of their community and thus may not apprehend the benefits of representing it on a map. Hence, ICM experts and local CSOs often have to engage in outreach activities and explain the benefits of interactive community maps to the community. Second, remuneration presents a typical challenge (Berdou 2010; Hagen 2011). Most ICM initiatives are based on the idea that money should not play Closing the Feedback Loop • http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-0191-4
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