Map Kibera — Residents Surveying an Informal Settlement into OpenStreetMap
This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.
18 sourced claims on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.
How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means · The full record behind this page
Thirteen residents with GPS handsets surveyed their own neighbourhood in under a month; in 2010 it entered OpenStreetMap. Whether the maps changed anything rests on the project's own account.
what does this mean?
The strongest source is the operator's or the city's own reporting — an official report, dataset or press release. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,216 documented projects · 🏙️ 4 more in Nairobi · 📊 Open data guide · 📡 Data & IoT projects
In November 2009 thirteen young residents of Kibera — a cluster of informal settlements in Nairobi's Kibra area of roughly 2.5 km² — were trained on GPS handsets by the GroundTruth Initiative and surveyed their own neighbourhood in under a month. The survey was imported into OpenStreetMap in January 2010: water points, toilets, clinics, schools, pharmacies and security black spots. Map Kibera Trust, run from Kibera, later repeated the method in Mathare and Mukuru and added an SMS reporting site and a video news channel. It is the older sibling of Digital Matatus, and the difference is the object: Digital Matatus mapped a transport network into GTFS and was university-led, while this mapped a place, and residents did the surveying. The founding claim that Kibera was blank — a blank spot or a forest on official maps — is the project's own framing, widely repeated since; no source was found testing it against Kenyan government survey records. The population is contested too: the 2009 census counted 170,070 people across the eight locations that form Kibera, against circulating estimates ranging from half a million to over a million. The most recent field mapping this atlas could confirm is from 2024.
📊 Impact
No independent evaluation of outcomes was located. The project's own September 2024 State of the Map talk reports that street-light mapping was followed by new street lights in Kibera, that mapping of waste management in Mukuru led to the placement of waste bins, and that school data led to a pilot solar installation. Participedia's case record, drawing on the project's own literature, adds KSh 37 million secured from the Ministry of Education for Kibera schools and a police post established after crime black spots were mapped; the underlying 2017 Making All Voices Count report was written by Erica Hagen, the project's co-founder.
🎓 Lesson
The data sits in OpenStreetMap under the ODbL, an open licence that anyone may reuse with attribution — and that same openness is why nobody can say who acts on it. The recurring academic criticism is that the step from map to intervention is asserted rather than demonstrated. A map anyone may copy is a weaker instrument than a register a department is obliged to consult.
Sources
Show 5 more sourcesShow fewer
📅 How old is the evidence?
Two clocks, kept apart: when this entry’s sources were published, and what has happened to its record in the atlas. Documented span: since 2009. 6 of 10 sources carry a publication date, from 3 September 2010 to 7 September 2024.
When the sources were published
- Nation Media Group · pressDaily Nation — Myth shattered: Kibera numbers fail to add up
- Pánek & Sobotová (author copy, EJISDC) · researchPánek and Sobotová (2015), Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries — author's summary
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) · researchMIT News — Digital Matatus project makes the invisible visible (26 Aug 2015)
- Making All Voices Count · ngoMaking All Voices Count / IDS — Open mapping from the ground up: learning from Map Kibera (2017)
- Participedia · researchParticipedia — Map Kibera case record · updated 9 May 2022
- OpenStreetMap Foundation · communityState of the Map 2024, Nairobi — Mapping Kenya: 15 Years of Map Kibera and beyond
Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 18 claims with their sources · the forensic record
Evidence file · public beta 18 addressable claims, 10 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The file is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.
Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 18
The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.
clm-a4b636788aa19406
quantitative
In November 2009 thirteen young residents of Kibera
Sources carrying this claim
clm-347b057b26a2cb99
quantitative
a cluster of informal settlements in Nairobi's Kibra area of roughly 2.5 km²
Sources carrying this claim
clm-139904ce4d409238
descriptive
were trained on GPS handsets by the GroundTruth Initiative and surveyed their own neighbourhood in under a month
Sources carrying this claim
clm-7bb32e7834e1ee01
quantitative
The survey was imported into OpenStreetMap in January 2010
Sources carrying this claim
clm-69d1ecd89cb739ff
descriptive
water points, toilets, clinics, schools, pharmacies and security black spots
Sources carrying this claim
clm-9e97ec9e22c61816
descriptive
Map Kibera Trust, run from Kibera, later repeated the method in Mathare and Mukuru and added an SMS reporting site and a video news channel
Sources carrying this claim
clm-ccb99c35ffa063a0
descriptive
Digital Matatus mapped a transport network into GTFS and was university-led
Sources carrying this claim
clm-55292b2ff4b1a0f7
descriptive
The founding claim that Kibera was blank — a blank spot or a forest on official maps — is the project's own framing, widely repeated since
Sources carrying this claim
clm-ac92a86503b8de91
quantitative
the 2009 census counted 170,070 people across the eight locations that form Kibera
Sources carrying this claim
clm-b242eaf733912cb3
quantitative
against circulating estimates ranging from half a million to over a million
Sources carrying this claim
clm-861f07c18610ceee
quantitative
The most recent field mapping this atlas could confirm is from 2024
Sources carrying this claim
clm-32ae49545820fe7d
descriptive
street-light mapping was followed by new street lights in Kibera
Sources carrying this claim
clm-0e46df8be82a13fb
descriptive
mapping of waste management in Mukuru led to the placement of waste bins
Sources carrying this claim
clm-fc7006ce987ec972
descriptive
school data led to a pilot solar installation
Sources carrying this claim
clm-8967a50180793751
quantitative
KSh 37 million secured from the Ministry of Education for Kibera schools and a police post established after crime black spots were mapped
Sources carrying this claim
clm-1b90138095668790
quantitative
the underlying 2017 Making All Voices Count report was written by Erica Hagen, the project's co-founder
Sources carrying this claim
clm-820681fdf3281c8d
descriptive
The data sits in OpenStreetMap under the ODbL, an open licence that anyone may reuse with attribution
Sources carrying this claim
clm-7d5098cd3cb49dcd
descriptive
The recurring academic criticism is that the step from map to intervention is asserted rather than demonstrated
Sources carrying this claim
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders
This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.
Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.
sha256:5b6bc3cf3fda05bb8f279dcf133aa5ed0a7d3a107c2b389c8beafb060f29fc13
- 18
- of 18 claims mapped
- 10
- source dossiers
- 6
- publication dates recorded
- 0
- archives linked
- 0
- exact locators
- 0
- content captures hashed
Governance facts carried by the record
- Operator
- Map Kibera Trust, founded by the GroundTruth Initiative
- Actor types
- civil-society
- Funding model
- grant
- Funding description
- Jumpstart International at launch; UNICEF for the second phase; later donor grants
- Cost
- Not recorded
- Ownership
- Not recorded
- Decision rights
- Not recorded
- Exit conditions
- Not recorded
10 source dossiers
Map Kibera Trust — About (operator)
- Stable source ID
src-b5aebb1e36222455- Publisher
- Name not classified · mapkibera.org
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- Not recorded
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-09-27
- Dossier created
- 2026-09-27
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
The operator's own description: launched in 2009 with young residents creating the first digital map of Kibera, later replicated in Mathare and Mukuru; a citizen mapping, SMS, blogging and video project. The page carries no dates.
- Claims linked
State of the Map 2024, Nairobi — Mapping Kenya: 15 Years of Map Kibera and beyond
- Stable source ID
src-287e87728e0ada35- Publisher
- Name not classified · 2024.stateofthemap.org
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2024-09-07
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-09-27
- Dossier created
- 2026-09-27
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
The project's own September 2024 conference session, and the source for the street-light, waste-bin and school-solar outcomes. It is the project's account, not an evaluation.
Participedia — Map Kibera case record
- Stable source ID
src-2ba958f9fbbfb0f1- Publisher
- Name not classified · participedia.net
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2021-12-09
- Updated
- 2022-05-09
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-09-27
- Dossier created
- 2026-09-27
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
Case record carrying the founding detail (late 2009, Hagen and Maron of GroundTruth, Jumpstart International funding, 13 mappers, first map in under a month, a UNICEF-funded second phase), the KSh 37 million Ministry of Education and police-post claims, and the recorded criticism that evidence linking the mapping to interventions is limited.
Pánek and Sobotová (2015), Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries — author's summary
- Stable source ID
src-078a21ddec87f71b- Publisher
- Name not classified · geoparticipation.wordpress.com
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2015-04-24
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-09-27
- Dossier created
- 2026-09-27
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
The author's summary of the article: an independent academic comparison of two Nairobi mapping projects: the community-based Map Kibera proved more sustainable than the researcher-led 'Map Kibera Project', which used closed formats and was led by Western researchers. Also the source for the general finding that the more demanding the technology, the less a community can take part. It does not address whether any authority used the data.
- Claims linked
Making All Voices Count / IDS — Open mapping from the ground up: learning from Map Kibera (2017)
- Stable source ID
src-d5e3b46feab7b964- Publisher
- Name not classified · makingallvoicescount.org
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2017-10-03
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-09-27
- Dossier created
- 2026-09-27
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
Co-founder Erica Hagen's 2017 study of the project, based on interviews with staff, participants and data users; it reports increased resources and targeting by government and NGOs, and is not independent.
- Claims linked
OpenStreetMap Foundation — Licence
- Stable source ID
src-76b9b903d62ec737- Publisher
- Name not classified · osmfoundation.org
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- Not recorded
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-09-27
- Dossier created
- 2026-09-27
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
Data extracted from OpenStreetMap after September 2012 is under the Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0, with attribution and share-alike; before that, CC BY-SA 2.0. The 2010 Kibera import predates the transition and was described at the time as public-domain data contributed to OSM.
- Claims linked
Daily Nation — Myth shattered: Kibera numbers fail to add up
- Stable source ID
src-3bec0a91b81ae3a5- Publisher
- Name not classified · nation.africa
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2010-09-03
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-09-27
- Dossier created
- 2026-09-27
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
Reports the 2009 census count of 170,070 across the eight locations forming Kibera and the census chief's statement that informal-settlement populations had been exaggerated.
- Claims linked
Tactical Technology Collective — 10 tactics remixed: Map Kibera, Kenya
- Stable source ID
src-ca4bd55181549871- Publisher
- Name not classified · informationactivism.org
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- Not recorded
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-09-27
- Dossier created
- 2026-09-27
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
Tactical Tech's case note: dates the first map to November 2009, names Hagen and Maron and the thirteen participants with hand-held GPS, and records the four mapped categories and the 'blank spot or a forest on official maps' framing. The page carries no publication date.
- Claims linked
OpenStreetMap Wiki — Nairobi (Map Kibera import)
- Stable source ID
src-e93ef678b6f8cc99- Publisher
- Name not classified · wiki.openstreetmap.org
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- Not recorded
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-09-27
- Dossier created
- 2026-09-27
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
The OpenStreetMap community's Nairobi page records the date the Map Kibera data entered OpenStreetMap and that it was contributed as public-domain data. A continuously edited wiki page.
- Claims linked
MIT News — Digital Matatus project makes the invisible visible (26 Aug 2015)
- Stable source ID
src-edb76fac1428b626- Publisher
- Name not classified · news.mit.edu
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2015-08-26
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-09-27
- Dossier created
- 2026-09-27
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
MIT's account of Digital Matatus as a joint project of MIT, Columbia University and the University of Nairobi that converted matatu route data to GTFS.
- Claims linked
Known limits of this file
- Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
- Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
- A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
- The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.
Continue exploring
Compare this project
Explore the wider context
📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Map Kibera — Residents Surveying an Informal Settlement into OpenStreetMap” — Nairobi, Kenya. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/nairobi-map-kibera/ (last verified 2026-09-27). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.
