How Social Media Data Can Improve People's Lives - If Used Responsibly
- Stefaan Verhulst for The World Bank May 9th, 2017
- Source: http://blogs.worldbank.org/publicsphere/how-social-media-data-can-improve-people-s-lives-if-used-responsibly
In January 2015, heavy rains triggered unprecedented floods in Malawi. Over the next five weeks, the floods displaced more than 230,000 people and damaged over 64,000 hectares of land.
Almost half the country was labelled a “disaster zone” by Malawi’s government. And as the humanitarian crisis unfolded, relief agencies, such as the Red Cross were faced with the daunting task of allocating aid and resources to places that were virtually unrecorded by the country’s mapping data, and thus rendered almost invisible.
