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Good practice Imported

Matcheli — Crowdsourced Wheelchair-Accessibility Mapping Co-Designed at Yerevan Mapathons

Armenia · Yerevan · See the Armenia profile · See the Yerevan profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 61% 68/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Since 2016, UNDP Armenia's Kolba Lab has incubated Matcheli, an open, crowdsourced map of wheelchair-accessible places built through public mapathons where wheelchair users, parents with prams and cyclists jointly tag accessible sites across Yerevan and beyond.

500+
Locations mapped in Yerevan (2016-2026)
Matcheli — Crowdsourced Wheelchair-Accessibility Mapping Co-Designed at Yerevan Mapathons

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Kolba Lab (UNDP Armenia)
Period
2016–present
Keywords
civil society, disability rights, open data, urban mapping

Context

UNDP Armenia's Kolba Lab incubated Matcheli ('accessible' in Armenian), an open platform letting anyone mark a location's wheelchair accessibility, built through public mapathons in central Yerevan that co-designed the tool with wheelchair users, parents with prams and cyclists.

Results

Coverage grew steadily since the 2016 launch: itel.am reported roughly 400 mapped places and about 80 active users, while UNDP separately reports over 500 locations in Yerevan alone, with outreach extended to other Armenian cities.

Conclusions

No independent impact evaluation was found and the user base remains modest for a national platform; its main evidenced strengths are longevity and a genuinely participatory data-collection method rather than measured outcomes.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
UNDP Armenia Kolba Lab, volunteer mapathon participants

Conditions for success

  • Continued community mapathons for data freshness
  • Expansion beyond Yerevan to sustain relevance

Common failure modes

  • No independent impact evaluation
  • Modest active-user base for a national platform

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Data sources

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