Daniel Macguire
Regional Resettlement Officer
Duty Station: Dakar, Senegal

I’m partnering with another Innovation Fellow to analyse data from past Call Data Records (CDRs) from cellphone towers to determine displacement, and then to compare this data with humanitarian records on refugee and IDP movement.

Each year, there are thousands of newly displaced individuals in West Africa, and the current field-visit methods for identifying the whereabouts and numbers of these displaced persons (only after which humanitarian organizations can begin to provide live-saving aid) are risky, costly, and untimely.

Our eventual goal is to use CDRs to estimate the numbers of conflict-induced displaced persons and their geo-spatial movement patterns in remote and insecure areas of West Africa during the onset of the emergency.

Watch Asuka’s and Daniel’s first prototype to analyze CDR data below: