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Good practice Imported

Ushahidi — Kenya's Crowdsourced Crisis-Mapping Platform

Kenya · Nairobi · See the Kenya profile · See the Nairobi profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 1% 95/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Born in Nairobi during Kenya's 2008 post-election violence, Ushahidi's open-source crowdsourcing platform has since been deployed 150,000+ times in 160+ countries, and used to coordinate 700+ helicopter rescues after Nepal's 2015 earthquake and to monitor Nigerian elections.

150,000+
Total platform deployments (2008-2018)
160+
Countries deployed in
50 million+
Total crowdsourced reports
700+
Helicopter rescues coordinated after Nepal's 2015 earthquake (2015)
1,500
Incident reports mapped in Haiti earthquake response (first two weeks) (2010)
3,500+
Total Haiti earthquake incident reports (2010)
17,700+
Reclaim Naija citizen reports (Nigeria election monitoring) (since 2015)
8 percentage points
Voter turnout increase associated with Reclaim Naija
10,000+ across 50+ cities
Safecity harassment reports gathered
200,000 USD
Early funding from Humanity United (2008)
1.4 million USD
Early funding from Omidyar Network (2009)
Ushahidi — Kenya's Crowdsourced Crisis-Mapping Platform

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Ushahidi Inc.
Period
2008–present
Keywords
civic tech, crisis mapping, crowdsourcing, open-source software, humanitarian data

Context

Ushahidi ('testimony' in Swahili) was built in Nairobi in early 2008 by four Kenyan technologists — among them Ory Okolloh, Erik Hersman, Juliana Rotich and David Kobia — after mainstream media under-reported violence following Kenya's disputed December 2007 election. The open-source tool let citizens submit incident reports by SMS, email or web form and plotted them on a public map, so eyewitness accounts could reach the public even when official channels went quiet.

Objectives

Let citizen eyewitness reports reach the public and support crisis coordination and mapping even when official information channels are silent or unreliable.

Activities

The platform has since been deployed more than 150,000 times across 160-plus countries. Documented deployments include the 2010 Haiti earthquake response, Nepal's 2015 'Quakemap', Nigeria's 'Reclaim Naija' election-monitoring project, India's 'Safecity' harassment-reporting adaptation, and the UN's own Ushahidi-based instance, SAGE (Situational Awareness Geospatial Enterprise), run across eight peacekeeping-mission countries.

Results

During the 2010 Haiti earthquake response, volunteers mapped 1,500 reports in the first two weeks and 3,500+ over the full deployment; FEMA reportedly relied on the map operationally. After Nepal's 2015 earthquake, the 'Quakemap' deployment logged 2,500+ incident reports and helped coordinate 700+ helicopter rescues. In Nigeria, 'Reclaim Naija' collected 17,700+ citizen reports since 2015 and was associated with an 8-percentage-point rise in voter turnout in a randomised evaluation. India's 'Safecity' has gathered 10,000+ harassment reports across 50+ cities. The UN's SAGE instance logs over 100 field reports per country daily across eight countries.

Conclusions

The platform grew from a grassroots 2008 crisis-response tool into institutional, sustained use, including by UN peacekeeping missions, with a funding mix of roughly 80% foundation grants and 20% fee-based consulting supporting a paid team of 14 by the time of Stanford Social Innovation Review's reporting.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — Early funding of $200,000 from Humanity United (2008) and $1.4 million from the Omidyar Network (2009); ongoing funding mix roughly 80% foundation grants and 20% fee-based consulting by the time of Stanford Social Innovation Review's reporting.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Founded early 2008 during Kenya's post-election crisis; continuously redeployed globally through at least the 2018 ten-year retrospective and reportedly still active.
Staffing & skills
Four founding Kenyan technologists (Ory Okolloh, Erik Hersman, Juliana Rotich, David Kobia), Grew to a paid staff of 14 by the time of Stanford Social Innovation Review's reporting

Conditions for success

  • Open-source design enabling free, independent redeployment across countries and use cases
  • Multi-channel reporting (SMS, email, web form) that works even when official information channels are silenced
  • Early foundation funding (Humanity United, Omidyar Network) enabling the team to scale from founders to paid staff
  • Adoption by institutional actors (UN peacekeeping's SAGE) for sustained, non-crisis operational use

Commonly funded by

Philanthropic / foundation funding Own resources / municipal budget

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Data sources

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