Since January 2019 Map For Future is an Italian cartographers group that is carrying out many workshops on Digital Cartography based in Rome, Italy. Valerio De Luca, a Geomatics Engineer, and Giuseppe Maria Battisti, a Geographer/GIS specialist, are both co-founders of MFF. Its main objective is to provide support to the consolidation of digital geographical services in order to develop a digital network in the most vulnerable areas of the world.
Nowadays, MFF is going to complete the Phase-1 of the International Mapping Partnership Project Rome-Hargeisa 2020. A Pilot project that consists of the realization of the Geoportal of Hargeisa starting from Wajaale city, in Somaliland. After a number of projects in several countries such as Tanzania and The Philippines, Bangladesh in December 2019 MFF were requested by the UN Mission in Brindisi, Italy, to work on a series of maps for rural areas of the Somali territory. This Mapathon was carried out at the La Sapienza University of Rome, successfully. In the first quarter of 2020, MFF has initiated an effort to further support the planning capacity of the Ministry of Agriculture of Hargeisa by collaborating with ‘GIS & Cadastral Survey – GCS’ (a local NGO of GIS experts) to create the ‘Geoportal of Hargeisa’. GCS has identified what are the priorities of Somali people and MFF has identified what are the priorities for the capacity building program between Italian and Somali cartographers. FORUM.UN-ITALIA consultants give precious support in the mediation between GCS and MFF for the realization of the project. The aim is to further expand this ‘capacity building effort’ in the field of Land Management, Municipal Management and other areas to be identified during the implementation of this pilot project. In fact, MFF offers and supports the establishment of new “Digital Geography Tools and Methodologies” in more vulnerable areas. The following are the objectives of the pilot phase of the Rome – Hargeisa partnership 2020:
1- Purchase of satellite images;
2- Realize the Geoportal of Hargeisa;
3- Realization of maps of Land Cover and Change Detection Analysis;
4- Capacity building for the local GCS group;
5- Organization of events such as Mapathon,
The opportunity of using these innovative geographic tools, together with the training of Somali staff to its efficient use, can contribute to the improvement of productivity in the agricultural sector and increase the availability of food production for Wajaale’s people. Moreover, services in other sectors, such as education, health, or urban planning, could also take advantage of these new capacities developed by the MFF group and GIS and Cadastral Survey Team partnership. (WEB SITE: MAP FOR THE FUTURE)