Cross Cluster Mapping Project (CCMP) – moving on to better coordination of organizations

Since March 2010 when JEN started its activity in Haiti, JEN has been participating in a coordination conference for groups which are conducting their activity in Leogane and Grand-Goâve.

The coordination conference organized by UNOCHA (United Nations, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) is divided by cluster (field) according to sectors of activity (water, housing, education, medical care, security and etc.). The purpose of this  conference is to deliver supports to those most in need by gathering, coordinating and diffusing information about the progress of activity in every sector.

JEN is recognized as one of the important groups mainly in the cluster of water/hygienic environment (WASH). Especially, JEN puts most of its efforts into hand pump and hygiene education campaign.

However, the coordination of supports has become more and more difficult due to the diversification of humanitarian support groups and the complication of projects. In the WASH cluster, such difficulty might be caused especially by the lack of intermediary system to exchange information from NGOs which are working in the same sector.

Under the current system, each group participates voluntarily in the coordination conference to exchange their information. However, since the exchange is made by using paper and the exchange process is complicated, it is difficult for us to get and analyze necessary information. Therefore, there are a lot of groups which give up providing information. Consequently, we have been in the situation of not knowing what are being done by other groups in the same area.

Recently, JEN has created ‘Cross Cluster Mapping Project (CCMP)’ with the cooperation of SASH (NGO). CCMP is an user-friendly intermediary tool with the use of map software called Google Earth.

On the map of CCMP, we can have a look at every group’s activities which are underway or planned in the clusters of housing, education and medical care. As all the activities are displayed on a map, we can see immediately possible overlapped projects or some vacant area. Therefore, coordination and cooperation among groups can be made effectively. Thus, time for planning will be reduced and the quality of projects will be improved. CCMP will also help us establish better relationship with local authorities by preventing duplicative activities and providing the share of transparent and clear information.

The tentative operation of the first mapping project is scheduled from May 15 to July 15, 2011. If the tentative project is performed successfully, this tool will be used for the coordination of projects in all Haiti.