Haiti Case Study - The Department of Global Health and Social ...

over satellite imagery and add metadata to each tracing (such as road name, road direction
(one-way or two-way), road type (dirt, gravel, asphalt, or concrete), etc.
22. Creative solutions evolved in Haiti. OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free and open map of
the world, a sort of cartographical version of Wikipedia with tools specific to map building and
with about 150,000 members. When the Haiti earthquake occurred, 640 cartographers and
mapping technologists used the already available imagery of the country to trace roads and
map hospitals and other critical infrastructure. The cartographers and technologists made
1.2 million edits to the map of Haiti in about two and a half weeks, effectively performing
about one man-year of work. 108 The base map created by OSM was the best available in the
early response, leading MapAction, the NGO designated by OCHA to perform emergency
mapping services for the UN, to use OSM as their core data set. 109 The US military also
turned—for the first time—to crowdsourcing for mapping. NGA followed MapAction and the
military began using data generated by an online community data for operational use. 110
23. The mapping of Haiti using open data formats was a huge success. Because OSM
used web services to distribute data, it allowed for widespread diffusion of mapping data and
rapid exchange of derived works. OSM essentially became a collaborative wiki where
anyone could add data in an ongoing basis and know that the current data was immediately
available to everyone. The system also enabled a web services model. This allowed GIS
professionals to overlay their systems on an OSM map that was being dynamically updated
(once per minute) as they created their analyses using the OSM data as a base layer. The
maps generated through this process served as the baseline maps for the entire response
and the Haitian government. 111
DISCUSSION
24. Medical supply chains in Haiti were devastated and foreign military forces played an
essential role in re-establishing them. Key tasks which civilian actors requested help from the
military to perform were reopening the airport, organizing and distributing medical supplies
and mapping in order to organize clearing of blocked supply routes.
25. Medical supply chains are an essential aspect of health systems and quickly reestablishing
them—rather than creating a duplicate system—is critical to both timely crisis
response and health system recovery and strengthening.
26. Establishment of efficient effective supply chains may have also bolstered Haitian
health system leadership by potentially enhancing its legitimacy.
27. Military assets were able to contribute to reestablishment of medical supply chains
because of their experience with port opening, logistics, rubble removal, and mapping. Their
technical expertise was reflected in the remarkable achievement of opening the airport and
safely quadrupling its capacity.
28. The biggest challenges that arose sprung from lack of interoperability among all actors.
In this case, interoperability challenges were manifested in:
• Lack of widely accepted, transparent and need driven mechanisms to prioritize
incoming supplies;
• Lack of common standards, or failure to comply with existing standards, regarding
labelling and packaging relief materials;
• Lack of staffing and transport capabilities among key civilian lead agencies;
• Lack of mechanisms for those controlling supply chains to sense demand signals
from the field.
29. As Lt. General Keen noted, “we worked through challenges, but our logistical system is
designed and focused primarily on internal support of our own forces, rather than external
A-5