Geospatial Science and Technology: Projects
Irag Local Governance Project (LGP)
Client
United States Agency for International Development
Description
The Local Governance Program (LGP) is an effort to strengthen government in Iraq at the local, municipal, and provincial levels. LGP's goal is to improve governmental management and administration, provide training and technical assistance on the roles and functions of government officials and agencies, and support the establishment of a legal framework for a democratic, representative, and decentralized government in Iraq.
Geographic Information System (GIS) activities have supported the LGP in Iraq from the start of the proposal process through the project's planning and implementation phases. The primary objective was to support large-scale mapping of the country, develop city-by-city map resources to help local governments establish baselines for future municipal planning, provide capacity-building support by consulting on grant applications for GIS hardware, software, training, and data collection.
Highlights of the LGP GIS activities included the development of a national set of 1:100,000 map sheets that provided, to our knowledge, the first national mapping effort in Iraq since the late 1970's when the Soviet Union's national cartographic agency produced the last nationally consistent map series in Iraq.
At a local level, we acquired high-resolution satellite imagery for a number of the largest cities and created map series and map books that provided LGP staff in each city with high-quality base mapping products with which to begin the process of developing city services, police districts, voting districts, school districts, and many other geographically based municipal functions.
We performed geospatial analysis to produce an assessment of soil salinity risks to agriculture. We also used global population data sources and Iraq-specific infrastructure data to estimate the size of the population that would be able to hear radio and TV advertisements containing information about election planning and voting procedures.
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