EISA Mapping Democracy Project - Launch

13 October 2008

EISA is pleased to annouce the launch of its Mapping Democracy Project. The project was conceived with the intention of enabling stakeholders to mine EISA data resources and gain an overview of major EISA programme activities through the use of interactive maps accessed via the internet. The use of interactive maps has the advantage of representing complex data that can be viewed and assessed in a glance. Certain maps may be manipulated by the user to display specific information. In this way the reader is able to extract what is relevant to him or her without searching through overwhelming amounts of data.

To this end EISA's ICT department underwent training by Sean O'Connor, an independent consultant, to acquire the necessary skills. In the process a number of maps have been produced and are now available on the EISA web site. These include maps of the Election calendar for Africa (2008), gender representation in SADC Parliaments and a map of conflict incidents in the Sudan for the period June 2008, amongst others. Explore EISA maps.

EISA programme staff have found these maps invaluable as an aid to presentations and workshops. Theya re ideally suited to support analysis and provide situational overviews.

As new tools become available and new skills are acquired, the EISA team will expand the range of data mapped and improve the degree of interactivity of the maps. We look forward to your input. We welcome comments and suggestions.

This project was made possible by the kind support of the Open Society Foundation - South Africa.