Tomaszewski et.al. Geographically Visualizing CAP Information Proceedings of the 6 th International ISCRAM Conference – Gothenburg, Sweden, May 2009 J. Landgren and S. Jul, eds. Geographically Visualizing Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP) Information Brian Tomaszewski Center for Multidisciplinary Studies Rochester Institute of Technology bmtski@rit.edu Lóránt Czárán Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER) United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) Czaran@unoosa.org ABSTRACT Maps are essential visual advocacy devices for humanitarian relief projects. Maps provide advocacy by presenting, disseminating, and analyzing humanitarian relief project information in formats that are easier to understand and reason with. In this paper, we present our preliminary work on geographically visualizing Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) information. The practical intent of our work is to (a) provide advocacy for CAP projects by geographically representing project information such as funding status so that (b) the nature of a project is better understood, thus potentially leading to increased project donations and improved project funding decision making. We provide examples of a prototype mapping application built to utilize Google Earth™ for representing CAP project information in map-based formats. Keywords Humanitarian Information, Advocacy, Consolidated Appeals Process, Visualization, Geographic Information INTRODUCTION The Consolidated Appeals Process is a management tool that humanitarian aid organizations use to plan, monitor, and implement humanitarian relief project appeals to the international community and donors (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 2007a). On average, the CAP helps to generate and manage over $3.1 billon in appeal requests per year 1 . In its current form, humanitarian appeal information developed through CAP such as an appeal’s financial status (i.e., funds requested and funds received) and project information (the nature of a project, where a project is located etc.) are contained primarily in text-based formats such as spreadsheets. This paper presents research-in-progress on developing geographic visualizations of CAP information. In particular, we examine the question of how intuitive visual representations of CAP information can be developed that utilize ubiquitous mapping technologies in order to facilitate and support advocacy and awareness for poorly funded appeals. We situate our work within the small, but growing body of humanitarian information management practitioner literature on the general role of visualization as an advocacy device (O’Connor, 2008, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 2008b). Our research extends previous work on the use of visualization as an advocacy device through development of the first geographic visualizations of humanitarian financial information. We demonstrate our specific efforts by presenting preliminary work on developing Google Earth™-based representations of country-level and country-specific CAP information. We conclude the paper with areas for future work on the use of maps as advocacy devices for CAP appeals and strategies for evaluating the effectiveness of the visual representations. BACKGROUND In this section, we highlight key areas of the application domain our research is related to and provide a brief theoretical framework to position our work within the domain of mapping as an advocacy device. The Financial Tracking Service (FTS) The CAP information utilized in our work is primarily drawn from the Financial Tracking Service (FTS) of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). FTS “is a global, real-time 1 http://ochaonline.un.org/cap2005/webpage.asp?Page=1243 (Last retrieved 14 November 2008)