Untapped: The Potential of Mobile Big Data to Support Urban Climate Resilience
A recent report by GSMA led by leading consultancy, Urban Emerge, with major input from Resurgence, has concluded that using Mobile Big Data (MBD) could be a game changer for cities based in low and middle income countries that are vulnerable to climate change.
Resurgence’s point of view centred on the fact that MBD was currently underused for urban climate resilience strategies, but that it had significant potential.
The main conclusion of the Report was that it was vital to:
- Build the capacity of the public sector and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to use MBD for urban climate resilience;
- Combine MBD with other data sources to have a more effective impact on urban climate resilience;
Develop partnerships and commercial models to ensure social inclusion and transparency; - Lobby for effective and efficient data infrastructure and data security measures to apply MBD insights at scale.
Whilst Resurgence looked at urban climate resilience broadly, we brought in a particular perspective of how to ensure that innovation in MBD reduced the climate risk of vulnerable communities in urban informal settlements, a primary focus of our DARAJA* Service and Partnership. Importantly , the GSMA report highlights that using MBD to design new disaster warning systems and optimised public transport routes can risk excluding certain demographic groups (for example; women, those living in rural areas, those with lower incomes) even further.
We are confident that the GSMA Report, to which we were proud to contribute, is helping to lay the foundations for systems, processes or policies that will encourage the use of MBD to support climate resilience.
For more information on our DARAJA* Service and Partnership please visit: https://www.resurgence.io/solutions/climate-risk-visualisation-and-communication/daraja/