Associated case studies:
Key Individuals:
William Bird, Adi Eyal
Project owner/Host organisation:
Media Monitoring Africa
Host organisation type:
Non-Profit
[icon name=”envelope-square” prefix=”fas”] info@mma.org.za
[icon name=”phone-square-alt” prefix=”fas”]
[icon name=”external-link-square-alt” prefix=”fas”] https://wazimap.co.za
Host organisation country/countries:
South Africa
Project objective categories:
Civic data, Dashboards, Data visualization tools and platforms, Network visualizations
Project technologies:
Data
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Wazimap
Post Status: Active
Initiative recipient country/countries: South Africa
Initiative dates: 2014 –
Last updated: 8 March 2022
Initiative Description
Wazimap is a Web platform that provides storytellers and campaigners with populations and financial figures which are broken down by categories of elections, demographics, service delivery, economics and education in order to add context and depth to stories or cause.
Wazimap was created in the run up to the 2014 elections because issues of labour, unemployment, crime, health, education challenges, transformation, sustainability, land, racism, xenophobia, poverty, inequality, gender-based violence and child abuse being so prevalent, we see that each of these issues receive less than 2% of coverage.
In an effort to help journalists get reliable factual information to back up and give context to stories, unpack the different political dynamics in different hot spots and see elements of how they cover elections, we had an idea that we could try and mash data from the census carried out by Stats SA together with elections results and media coverage.
During a Hacks Hackers event, Media Monitoring Africa's (MMA) William Bird and OpenUp's Adi Eyal banded together to create a tool that could do just this. The name Wazi is derived from the IsiXhosa word “ulwazi” for knowledge which we believed resonated with the aim of Wazimap.
Over the last six years, Wazimap has been updated with every round of elections and continues to be powered by OpenUp in partnership with MMA. Wazimap has already proven to be so successful that it is being adapted again for Kenya and Nigeria by OpenUp and we have more great things for Wazimap planned.
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