Welcome

Dear colleagues,
Still far too few Welthungerhilfe projects are using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which have proved themselves to be extremely effective tools for project planning, management and monitoring, as well as for project documentation. Most projects do however already undertake GPS position-fixing of project activities.
Unfortunately, the next stage, moving from GPS logging to the GIS-supported presentation of project results in thematic maps, is still frequently not taken. This is a step that Welthungerhilfe must take in order to meet the increasing demands of project implementation.

A survey carried out in 2009 amongst Welthungerhilfe's expatriate staff has concluded that 62% of the employees can see themselves using GIS in project work if they receive appropriate support from head office. Two hurdles would have to be cleared in order to be able to provide support across different projects:

  1. A common GIS software is a prerequisite for GIS support organised by head office. However, various GIS programmes are currently being used by some collegues who already use GIS in project work.
  2. The costs of purchasing a licence for standard commercial brand-name products are very high. Depending on the level of equipment, the costs incurred can be up to €4,000 per work station. Up to now, only a few individual projects have been able to afford this level of costs. Further on it has not been possible to encourage our partner organisations to use GIS for cost reasons.
With the introduction of gvSIG beeing a cost-free and licence-free open source GIS programme, together with a modularly structured support service we now want to create the necessary framework conditions to allow both our employees and our partner organisations to use GIS in their project environment. This Welthungerhilfe GIS Starter Package provides those who are new to GIS with all the information they need to successfully familiarise themselves with the subject.
Advanced users of GIS are introduced to the gvSIG software in order for them to decide whether it is worthwhile to move over to the new software.

 

We hope you have lots of fun working your way through the CD and lots of success using gvSIG! We look forward to receiving your comments and suggestions (mail to: support@welthungerhilfe.de) to further develop and improve the Welthungerhilfe GIS Starter Package!

Bärbel Mosebach
Head of Knowledge Innovation Consultancy Unit
May 2011

Stephan Simon

Advisor Knowledge Innovation Consultancy Unit