Applicability of Open Source Systems (Ushahidi) for Security Management, Incident and Crisis Mapping - ACF-Spain Case Study

Sep 11, 2026

The study evaluates how open source incident reporting and crisis mapping can improve security management for Acción contra el Hambre (ACF-Spain). After ACF-Spain’s Excel-based incident registration showed limits in transfer efficiency and mapping capability, the report compares candidate platforms and concludes that Ushahidi best fits requirements. Ushahidi supports authenticated access, customization, mobile reporting, media uploads, encrypted panels, export/import, and map layers and alerts, enabling registration, consolidation, and graphical representation of security incidents.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryGeneral

FormatPDF

Pages7

Reading Time3 min

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Applicability of Open Source Systems (Ushahidi) for Security Management, Incident and Crisis Mapping - ACF-Spain Case Study

Introduction

Applicability of Ushahidi in security risk management

A quick look at Ushahidi for NGOs

Applicability of Open Source Systems (Ushahidi) for Security Management, Incident and Crisis Mapping Acci n contra el Hambre (ACF-Spain) Case Study Gonzalo de Palacios Introduction Acción contra el Hambre (Action Contre la Faim, ACF-Spain) is a Spanish humanitarian organisation and part of the ACF-International Network. Since its creation in 1995, ACF-Spain has been working indifferent countries and contexts, where security management is implemented and adapted through GPR8 ‘Operational Security Management in Violent Environments’(Van Brabant, 2010) . For ACF-Spain, incident reporting serves two main purposes: supporting victims of incidents and being able to take the necessary steps in order to prevent the occurrence of new incidents. In 2008 ACF-Spain started registering incidents from all its countries of operations (15 to 20 countries) ina systematised way using an Excel workbook. Incidents were reported from ﬁeld sites to the Country Coordination Ofﬁce and from there to Headquarters in Madrid. Although this was a positive initiative, as it began to provide evidence for identifying trends, victim proﬁles or most vulnerable locations, it had some limitations in relation to the access of information from countries of operation and the efﬁciency of the reporting process itself. In order to be able to analyse the information, the data contained in the incident report in Word format had to be transferred manually to the Excel workbook, taking a considerable amount of time. One of the gaps in the registering system ACF-Spain identiﬁed at that time was being able to pinpoint on a map where incidents were happening, something that Excel cannot offer. Despite this we managed to generate from our Excel database map layers in KML (Keyhole Markup Language), which allowed us the possibility of viewing through Google Earth where incidents were happening. The process was still very inefﬁcient, with numerous mistakes, and the resulting KML was too heavy. After doing research, we identiﬁed various possibilities for incident reporting and mapping, such as open GIS software, Open Data Kit from Google, SharePoint from Microsoft, internal Project Management software and Ushahidi. These systems were compared and evaluated. It was determined that an incident reporting system should improve reactivity to support incident victims (see Porcaro and Walker, pp. 33-36); be able to map not only where incidents occurred (see Sambuli and Awori, pp. 27-31); but also statistics from the database, security perimeters and levels, and evacuation routes and maintain a database of security-related information to help ACF-Spain improve its incident reporting system, reﬁne the analysis of trends through the consolidation of information, and ease decision making for security management. In summary, an incident reporting and mapping system should allow registration, consolidation and graphical representation of security incident information. From a technical point of view, other factors were considered, such as cost, licence, bandwidth, access and permissions, authentication, mobile device support, compatibility with other systems, ﬂexibility and adaptability of the tool, the possibility of mapping polygons, routes and areas, the possibility of getting reports and alerts, and the possibility of importing/exporting information from/to other software. Section 3 51 Section 3 Using Communications Technology for Security Risk Management Section 3 An illustration of the system would be: The result of the analysis and comparison identiﬁed Ushahidi as the system that best suited our needs. Applicability of Ushahidi in security risk management Ushahidi,115 ‘testimony’ in Swahili, is a web-based platform initially developed in collaboration with Kenyan citizen journalists to map violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout in 2008. We selected Ushahidi because it fulﬁlled the technical and functional criteria aforementioned. In particular

FAQs

Why did ACF-Spain change from Excel-based incident reporting?

Excel could not provide mapping where incidents occurred, and the Word-to-Excel transfer required significant manual time. The process also produced inefficiencies, mistakes, and heavy KML outputs.

What criteria were used to select an incident reporting and mapping system?

The system had to improve reactivity for victims, map incident locations and supporting security information, enable trend analysis, and support technical constraints such as cost, licensing, bandwidth, permissions, authentication, device support, compatibility, and import/export.

What key functions does Ushahidi provide for NGOs managing security incidents?

Ushahidi offers a map of reported incidents with categories and layers, time-evolution graphs, viewing and filtering of reports by range and fields, configurable alerts via email, and mobile capabilities for submitting and recording incident reports.

Sep 11, 2026

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