The Darfur crisis of 2003 created a varied and complex picture of displacement that was difficult to analyze, and challenging for the international community to understand. A variety of factors affect a person's decision to move from one place to another. The work of the humanitarian agencies in West Darfur is often complicated by a lack of reliable information which results from the intricacy of population movements.
In 2004, to help understand the complexities of the situation, INTERSOS undertook a return-oriented profiling exercise in the Southern Sector of West Darfur. The profiling was designed to obtain a comprehensive picture of both the current and pre-conflict situations. The exercise provided INTERSOS and UNHCR, as well as all agencies working in the region, a clear and detailed picture of the returnee and IDP situations in almost every village in Southern West Darfur, to support war affected communities, sustain voluntary return and prepare the ground for an eventual voluntary return of a large number of IDP's and refugees to their villages of origin.

A multipurpose Village Assessment Form (VAF) has been used to collect information. It includes:

• Typologies of settlements (inhabited, abandoned, destroyed);
• The population and tribal makeup of the village monitored such as:
  • Population before the crisis and now,
  • Proportion of the population that fled,
  • Presence of IDPs/refugees and returnees,
  • Newly settled people
• Movement features;
• Sectoral information:
  • Health, education, water, shelter,
  • Vulnerable cases, security, relations between the different ethnic groups,
  • Land, agriculture, environment, livestock, economy,
  • International presence

The information was also used to identify the potential rehabilitation projects to be undertaken. We entered all the data collected during the profiling exercise into a database, and then created geographical summaries of the monitored villages, together with thematic GIS maps for each monitored administrative unit (INTERSOS-UNHCR, 2005). Upon completion of the profiling activity, INTERSOS set up a program to keep the information up to date with continuous evolution in the field. In 2005 we began on-going monitoring of returns every 4 months, covering all the locations in Southern West Darfur (INTERSOS-UNHCR, 2006a, 2006b).

In 2006, the need to strengthen our information sharing capacity with UNHCR, other UN agencies and NGOs, led INTERSOS to look at web-based solutions that would make sectoral information available for direct consultation on-line in real time. We soon noticed the need to make the consultation more interactive and sought a way for other agencies to contribute towards updating the data. To this end, the development of the WebGIS prototype started in October 2006.

The WebGIS platform considered a revised version of the VAF that improve its capacity to use the territorial aspects of the sectoral data. The database was transferred from the original MS Access version to a centralized geodatabase PostgreSQL-PostGIS server, where information are now made available for consultation by INTERSOS and UNHCR field officers directly through the web in real time. Because internet connections available in Darfur are few, expensive, and of low-quality (mainly based on satellite connections), data-entry clerks and field officers were also provided with a user-friendly offline client interface in standard browser environment to input and manage data. An easy to install software package includes the interface and procedures to regularly transfer the data to the centralized geodatabase whenever an internet connection is available. At the same time, the connection to the centralized geodatabase feeds the client workstations of the INTERSOS and UNHCR field officers with the latest data available on the server: these data that will be later on available offline for further field assessments and updating.

The pilot WebGIS platform makes digital maps available that offer several different informative thematic layers. It is possible to interrogate the geodatabase using specific criteria to extract particular data sections on ad hoc thematic maps.
The main outputs the WebGIS platform makes available are:

• Sectoral information regarding the villages (from VAFs).
• Thematic maps with several different informative layers (on typologies of settlements, population, health, education, water, accessibility, shelter, NFIs, food security, international presence, security).
• Reports and statistics:
  • Geographical summaries village by village.
  • Aggregated and disaggregated statistics with regard to the population before and after the crisis.
  • Statistics with regard to IDPs, returnees, refugees, people fled out/missing.
  • Sectoral statistics.

The WebGIS platform is available to the following actors/stakeholders:

• INTERSOS/UNHCR field officers access, update, and interrogate the database in real time.
• UNHCR program officers consult the database and the thematic maps directly from internet.
• UN agencies/NGOs operating in Southern West Darfur access sectoral information for project planning purposes, and contribute to maintaining the database by sharing the information gathered through their own assessments of the area.
• UNHCR's implementing partners working in West Darfur (where INTERSOS does not operate) use the platform to input, manage, and analyze their own data, facilitating the adoption of a common analysis tool for the whole West Darfur.
• UN agencies/NGOs operational along the Chadian border use the platform to assess the situation of villages of origin for Sudanese refugees being assisted at the camps.
• OCHA coordination action is supported thanks to a powerful tool able to clearly identify sectoral gaps.
• Refugees/IDPs make informed decisions about when to return because UN agencies and NGOs have data for ad hoc information campaigns.
• DONORS decision-making processes are supported with regard to allocation of funds.
• INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY access baseline information on the humanitarian situation at the IDP camps as well as at the villages with an increased awareness on Darfur crisis.

Access is provided to different users through customized interfaces that allow different views of geodata and of the available analysis tools. High interoperability is assured in the WebGIS platform in terms of geospatial data formats and standards. This assures easy data sharing with other actors who need of part of the dataset. In particular, GPS positions of newly assessed settlements and roads are easily assimilated in the system and are shareable with OCHA-IMU (HIC).

1. INTERSOS-UNHCR (2005), Return-oriented Profiling in the Southern Part of West Darfur and corresponding Chadian border area →
2. INTERSOS-UNHCR (2006a), Monitoring of Returns in Southern West Darfur Aug05-May06, →
3. INTERSOS-UNHCR (2006b), Southern West Darfur Field Atlas Aug05-May06, →