News — 20 December, 2016
Making use cases for crowd sourced financial services data in Uganda
How can individuals, businesses and government adapt the process, and reliability of crowdsourced financial services data collection, for planning, decision making and financial inclusion. “Where are financial services located?”
Such concerns (and questions) above were a key focus On December 5 & 6, when HOT and FSD Uganda organised a dissemination workshop in Kampala to close off the Mapping financial inclusion project that took place between January 2016 - April 2016 in 22 districts across eastern Uganda and Kampala.
The first day consisted of presentations and discussion on how to make the best use of open (geospatial) data on financial services, while the second day was a hands-on workshop to get people from different (financial) institutions started with using and analysing geographical data and GIS applications, and encouraging them to start using this data in their work.
The workshop featured presentations about HOT’s approach and discussions on the methodology, best practices, lessons, and next steps on the use, analysis and sustainability of the OpenStreetMap crowdsourcing model for collecting data on financial services to further financial inclusion in Uganda.
The workshop was graced with representatives from institutions that make use of digital financial service data and analysis within their organizations like banks, microfinance institutions, mobile network operators (MNOs), financial sector deepening agencies, service providers of business solutions, data integration and visualization.
HOT implemented this project together with Financial Sector Deepening, supported by the Local OSM Communities and Universities in Uganda, representing the Gates Foundation, Mr Abed Mutemi highlighted the need for advances in data science using new approaches like OpenStreetMap for data collection and sharing.
FSD Uganda facilitated an engaging discussion and dialogue on how to use financial service data in decision making , policy and business. Important to note here is the fact that there is need to “Ask the decision makers, what data they need, and how they want it displayed.”
A data use case was presented by GeoGecko showing “”financial access in Kampala” in relation to the number of buildings and economic activity, based on a survey and dataset from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics on businesses.
The Financial Sector GIS working group also highlighted a strategy and action plan which requires the need for updated data, GIS and analysis skills, as well as having a National Spatial Data Infrastructure in Uganda.
The last day of the workshop offered a hands on training session in QGIS to come up with evidence-based product design, implementation, use cases, and strategic use of the data collected to make use cases. Closing remarks from some of the participants revealed that “this was generally an eye-opener and wonderful training on what can be achieved with open data, and GIS” and they were “more than impressed by the training”
In the end, the project approach, including methodology, and tools were illustrated, the financial services mapped onto OpenStreetMap were used to make the analysis on the use cases. Communication continues with the institutions represented on these two days, as HOT supports the local capacity and skills grown from this project with the Youth Mappers chapters and the OpenStreetMap Community in Uganda, together with the organisations that partnered in this project.