Practical Action in Bolivia aims to train individuals to identify and map their needs, making geospatial data available to NGOs and government agencies providing aid.

2020 Microgrant

This year, the Amazon was hit by raging forest fires, which caused the highest rates of deforestation in a decade. In Bolivia alone, the fires destroyed more than three million hectares in the Amazon region, causing widespread damage to the biodiversity, killing animals and harming livelihoods. For the communities to recover from the wildfires and reduce any further risk to themselves and their livelihoods, critical information must be shared with responders and government.

Practical Action will work to ensure critical, life and livelihood-saving information is no longer missing from the map. They will work with communities in the affected regions to build a community-generated mapping system that will allow the local population to identify and map their own needs. They will be able to record where crops have been destroyed, animals are in critical condition, damaged infrastructure, new fires and much more - to get the right people to the right places at the right time.