CARTO > Case Studies > Nimble, Collaborative Rapid Response

Nimble, Collaborative Rapid Response

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

Asia

Country

Lebanon

Product

CARTO platform

Tech Stack

SQL
APIs
Dropbox

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Customer Satisfaction
Productivity Improvements
Innovation Output

Technology Category

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms
Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics

Applicable Industries

National Security & Defense
Cities & Municipalities

Applicable Functions

Logistics & Transportation
Field Services

Use Cases

Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
Public Warning & Emergency Response
Public Transportation Management

Services

Data Science Services
System Integration

About The Customer

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a global refugee agency dedicated to protecting the rights of and building a better future for refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless peoples. Created in the aftermath of the 2nd World War, the UNHCR’s mission has only grown in importance as the global tally of forcibly displaced people nears 70 million. Since the outbreak of civil war in Syria in 2011, over 5.6 million people have fled the country in an effort to escape the violence. With over 1.5 million refugees arriving over the last 7 years (second only to Turkey), Lebanon has shouldered much of the weight of the crisis. A small country (ranked 161st in area, the world's 7th smallest non-island nation) with only 4 million citizens, the influx has been impactful and resources for supporting refugees have to be tactically optimized.

The Challenge

The UNHCR’s Inter-Agency Coordination Unit based in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital and largest city, operates at the epicenter of a complex web of refugee support and response. They coordinate between over 200 organizations, governmental, NGO, and private sector. In order to effectively coordinate, they created 12 working groups, each with a distinct focus area. These working groups, supported by a unified IT infrastructure, create and execute on 4-year plans while also meeting unexpected challenges with rapid response. The refugee crisis, and the support system that has risen up to help refugees in Lebanon, is complex. Unofficial settlements pop-up regularly and the landscape is constantly shifting. Government policies impact refugee settlement status, environmental factors impact refugee safety, shifting populations require constant re-prioritization and resource allocation. While having this data is a great start, for the Inter-Agency Coordination Unit’s working groups to leverage the data towards their 4-year plans, and for emergency service and rapid response efforts, they also need a system that allows this data to be accessed, visualized, analyzed, and disseminated across their 200 partner organizations.

The Solution

The Inter-Agency Coordination Unit has leveraged the CARTO platform to centralize efforts for data management and maintenance, to create on-the-fly visualizations and apps for emergency response, to understand the impacts of changing policies and more. In order to coordinate their working groups and their complex network of partners, the Unit has created an Information Hub, where those partners can find and share information, data and tools. This site also has a Map Hub which links directly to their CARTO dashboard. Using CARTO’s APIs and connectors to Dropbox, the Coordination Unit is able to make sure that their visualizations and applications are updated with the latest data from their on-the-ground teams in real time. The Inter-Agency Coordination Unit’s rapid-response capabilities were put to the test when Storm Norma hit the country on January 5th, 2019. The storm lasted 5 days, blanketed areas of higher elevation with up to 2 meters of snow, and caused severe flooding across the country. In order to coordinate emergency response, the UNHCR team used CARTO in conjunction with their well-maintained data sets, and live storm data to visualize and project impact.

Operational Impact

The Inter-Agency Coordination Unit has built a fast and accessible infrastructure for hundreds of stakeholders, many of whom don’t have a technical background.
They have created the blueprint for bringing a centralized and integrated Location Intelligence solution to bear in coordinating rapid response in a chaotic environment and building shared intelligence and insight between hundreds of disparate stakeholders and partner groups.
They’ve mapped the country’s healthcare centers in detail, helping aid workers provide direct support to refugees and aiding in the prioritization of resource deployment.
They’ve merged humanitarian response data (ex. the distribution of weatherproofing kits) alongside population, allowing for gap analysis and a clearer picture of resource needs.
They created buffers around Lebanon’s waterways, to preemptively respond to the country’s recent environmental plan, which evicts settlements located near water sources.

Quantitative Benefit