data – Multiple Journalism

Data Atlas

Devid Ilievski — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 03:00:14 +0000

Data Atlas

Online world maps visualizing existing data sets about major global development issues. Both the original data sets and the visualizations may be used free of charge.

When

2014

Where

the Netherlands

Who

Ellen de Lange, Winny de Jong, Jason Yergeau and others

Website

oneworld.nl

What is it?

The OneWorld Data Atlas is an online tool exploring global development issues through maps and infographics based on data sets provided by the UN and other international organizations.

Charting a changing world, the Atlas includes data visualizations on issues such as food security, natural resources, and population growth. The maps and charts can be easily embedded on other websites and raw data sets may be downloaded free of charge.

How does it work?

Many institutions working on development issues are starting to share their data. The World Bank, the World Food Programme and other UN departments, NGOs, and some Ministries of Foreign Affairs, for instance, have recently opened their databases to enrich public knowledge and enhance the transparency of their work. Together, these free data sets contain a wealth of information on how the world is changing.

However, most data are not immediately comprehensible for the general public. The Data Atlas editors find, analyse, and review online data sets and make them accessible and meaningful for a general audience (in Dutch). The Data Atlas editors also clean up data sets and store them in CKAN, an open source data management system that enables easy sharing.

Through Drupal software, different kinds of maps (e.g. choroplete, heatmap, moving maps, bubbles) and charts (eg. histograms, bar charts, line charts) can be made to show the data in various ways. Users can click on timelines to see the world changing over time and compare different data.

Background

OneWorld is a journalism platform covering international development and sustainability for a Dutch audience (in Dutch). The Data Atlas is a tool developed by OneWorld to visualize data in various types of maps and charts in order to enrich more traditional blog stories. The Data Atlas allows readers to explore the raw facts behind stories.

Online readers may be moved by a news story or photo, but through the Data Atlas, they can check the statistical context of a story to better understand its importance. OneWorld plans to make the Data Atlas available for international use in the future.

Who are the users?

The OneWorld Data Atlas has been developed for a broad range of users. News blog readers may use the Data Atlas to understand the news in context and further explore topics of interest. Each theme is highlighted from several different angles, for example, under “food security” there are data about hunger, obesity, meat consumption, and land grabbing.

Users can click through timelines of the maps to see how the world has changed over time, but they can also compare data from different countries in a bar chart, read background information, or pull up related articles.

Professional journalists and NGO-employees are using the Atlas to provide better information, for example by embedding maps on their own websites to enrich their own stories. Schools and universities also use the stats, maps and figures in the Data Atlas, because the data are offered in an accessible way.

Some have incorporated the Data Atlas in their curriculum. Finally, the Data Atlas is of interest for data journalists, designers and developers, who prefer to use the data sources that the maps are built on and design their own visuals. They also reconstruct analyses and findings to double-check the findings.

In this way, the Atlas is constantly improved through the efforts of the data community. In 2015, a tool will be added to the Data Atlas for organizations wishing to produce quantitative maps on global issues in their own (corporate) identity.

Why did we select it?

By making quantitative facts and figures available as context for news, analysis and anecdotes, the Data Atlas contributes to a more objective and fact-based information flow, especially as concerns the developing world. Furthermore, with the Data Atlas, OneWorld adds to openness and transparency in the development sector.

The often polemic debate on spending taxpayers’ money on development aid is too rarely backed by facts. The Data Atlas makes huge amounts of data readily available and comprehensible, thus contributing to the quality of this debate. Although the tool is currently only available in Dutch, OneWorld is planning to make it available in English and possibly other world languages in the future.

Compare

World Bank Data Viz: a Tumblr blog by the World Bank that collects visualizations about the fight against poverty.
Gapminder.org: a widely used resource initiated by statistics professor Hans Rosling that visualizes the most important global trends.

Related Cases

Data Atlas

Online world maps visualizing existing data sets about major global development issues. Both the original data sets and the visualizations may be used free of charge.

Mapping Arms Data

An interactive data visualization that tracks arms and ammunition flows in order to understand the global arms trade and inform public debate and policy interventions.

Million Dollar Blocks

A spatial information design project that looks at rarely accessible criminal justice data in new ways by using mapping software.

Mapping Arms Data

Devid Ilievski — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:18:50 +0000

Mapping Arms Data

An interactive data visualization that tracks arms and ammunition flows in order to understand the global arms trade and inform public debate and policy interventions.

When

2013

Where

Brazil

Who

Robert Muggah, the Igarapé Institute, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)

Website

nisatapps.prio.org

What is it?

Drawing from existing data sources, the project tracks the global trade in small arms, light weapons, and ammunition. Small arms are responsible for the vast majority of conflict deaths and homicidal violence across the globe yet the trade is poorly regulated and penetrated by illicit networks.

The MAD project increases transparency and promotes accountability in the global trade of small arms and ammunition in order to understand how they threaten security and development throughout the world.

How does it work?

The underlying data draws from over 37 publicly available sources documenting the authorized trade of arms and ammunition, covering 262 states and territories and aggregating over a million data points. Users can explore the interface to map weapons flows by country and year between 1992-2012.

The visualization displays the volume and composition of each country’s small arms transfers, differentiating between military and civilian weapons and ammunition. It also shows the direction of exports and imports and how much they are worth.

The opaque nature of much of the global small arms trade makes tracking these flows immensely difficult. MAD’s reliance on publicly available data makes it an imperfect guide to assessing the totality of the arms trade since much of it takes place in the shadows.

However, it represents the best effort by far to aggregate and visualize this data. One sees, for instance, a spike in the flow of Iranian arms exports to Sudan as fighting erupted in Darfur after 2003, or the huge inflow of arms and ammunition imports that followed Mexico’s declaration of a war on drugs in 2006.

Why did they make it?

Virtually all firearms begin their lives legally, but many are diverted into the illicit trade, fuelling organized crime and insurgency across the globe. The small arms market is remarkably opaque, poorly regulated, and linked to murky networks of armed groups. The absence of transparency, accountability and regulation is particularly shocking given the extraordinary human costs of gun violence.

The MAD visualization shines a light on the $8.5 billion market in small arms and ammunition. It assembles specialized research carried out by governments and think tanks to inform activists, journalists and the wider public in an engaging and graphic manner.

Indeed, the tool was used by diplomats during United Nations negotiations for an Arms Trade Treaty in 2012 and 2013. By increasing public scrutiny over authorized imports and exports, the Igarapé Institute and PRIO hope to curb the unregulated proliferation of small arms and light weapons.

Why did we select it?

It is a pioneering effort to inform debate about the flow of small arms and ammunition, a topic that is often hidden from view. It has sparked global media coverage that helped people grasp the scale of the problem – and the involvement of their own governments in the arms trade.

The MAD visualization has been viewed by over 4 million people and was the recipient of several international awards and nominations. It shows how technology can render huge amounts of publicly available information comprehensible in ways that shape debate and journalistic coverage with implications for global security and development.

Other projects

The Igarapé Institute has several other projects that employ technology in innovative ways to promote security and development, including:

– The Child Security Index, a smartphone app that allows Brazilian children and care-givers to map perceptions of everyday violence in their communities.

– The Citizen Security Database allows users to interact with trends in public security and safety interventions and explore micro-level data about individual projects across Latin America and the Caribbean.

– The Smart Policing initiative is an Android app that uses video, audio and GPS functions of phones to improve oversight over police in Brazil, Kenya and South Africa.

In 2014 and 2015 the MAD project is being upgraded. It will feature new data on arms and ammunition exports and imports. What is more, it will include a new filter that provides the average price for selected weapons per country. This will allow users to see how street prices for firearms vary from setting to setting. Such information is useful in predicting the demand for guns, and possibly future hot spots around the world.

Related Cases

Data Atlas

Online world maps visualizing existing data sets about major global development issues. Both the original data sets and the visualizations may be used free of charge.

Mapping Arms Data

An interactive data visualization that tracks arms and ammunition flows in order to understand the global arms trade and inform public debate and policy interventions.

Million Dollar Blocks

A spatial information design project that looks at rarely accessible criminal justice data in new ways by using mapping software.

Million Dollar Blocks

Devid Ilievski — Wed, 27 May 2026 00:12:14 +0000

Million Dollar Blocks

A spatial information design project that looks at rarely accessible criminal justice data in new ways by using mapping software.

When

2006

Where

United States

Who

Project Directors: Laura Kurgan (SIDL), Eric Cadora (JMC), Research Associates: David Reinfurt (SIDL), Sarah Williams (SIDL)

Website

Chicago’s MDB Map

What is it?

Million Dollar Blocks refers to an information visualization project about the US penitentiary system designed by the Spatial Information Design Lab (SIDL) in collaboration with the Justice Mapping Center (JMC).

Building block

In many urban neighbourhoods across the US, the incarceration rates are so high that the state government spends over a million dollars per year to imprison residents of a single city block. Using primary source data of the criminal justice system, SIDL has created a set of geographical maps and info-graphics related to these so-called “Million Dollar Blocks”.

This architecture and urban design project intersects with digital forms of investigative journalism because it uses the spatial research methods and visualization tools of mapping software to open up and critically investigate information of interest to the general public and policy makers.

How does it work?

It investigates criminal justice data by using location-based visual analysis and geo-mapping. Criminal justice data generally includes standard information such as name and home address of the convicted criminal, time and location of the crime, and length of the sentence.

Traditional geo-maps based on this type of data generally focus on which crimes were committed, when, and where, in order to calculate crime rates in specific areas. The SIDL’s mapping project, however, refocuses the same datasets to the people who are incarcerated (where do they report that they live? where are they locked up?), and relates this information to the incarceration costs of the inmates, inhabitants of what turns out to be “million dollar blocks”, and often where they will return home after their sentence.

This different use of the data produces new information about imprisonment patterns, which can help devise strategies for reducing the high costs and investing in the neighborhood rather than in the criminal justice infrastructure outside of the city itself.

Why did they make it?

The makers of Million Dollar Blocks want to raise public awareness around the US incarceration system and its underlying policies.

The map-based data visualizations on imprisonment patterns show a vicious circle: large numbers of incarcerated individuals come from the same neighbourhoods; on return to that neighbourhood after being released from prison, many are frequently reincarcerated.

The geographical portrayal of social and criminal justice data also renders the relationship between crime, poverty and race visible.

The investigative journalism approach of the project poses questions about how public money is spent. How do communities benefit from the large sums of money spent on prisons and jails? Might the funds be better spent on education, housing, and health care in these Million Dollar Blocks neighborhoods?

Which tools and software are used?

SIDL employs the research methods and visualization tools of mapping software, which structures location-based data and transforms it into visual maps (cluster maps, density maps, hot-spots maps, etc.) and related infographics.

As Laura Kurgan (SIDL) explains the use of GIS or geographic information systems: “By reorganizing tabular data using unique digital visualization techniques, and locating it geographically, the design lab tries to correlate disparate items of information and picture the patterns and networks they create.”

For Million Dollar Blocks, the lab designed a set of geo-maps linking criminal justice data to social and economic data, as exemplified by crime and prison maps such as “Prison Expenditures by Census Blocks” or “Crime Density Maps in relation to Poverty Maps”.

Why did we select it?

The makers of Million Dollar Blocks want to raise public awareness around the US incarceration system and its underlying policies.

The geographical portrayal of social and criminal justice data also renders the relationship between crime, poverty and race visible.

What is the impact?

The project invites public debate about issues related to public spending on incarceration in the US, and encourages policy makers to rethink and improve public institutions and urban infrastructures in terms of effectiveness and costs.

As the SIDL reports: “Prison-spending maps have begun to influence the dynamics of the political debate, suggesting new ways to think about crime and punishment, recidivism and reform.”

State and city officials have used the maps for community investment strategies and programs focused on re-entry and personal development. Million Dollar Blocks will be further developed and refined with feedback from state and local leaders.

Another similar case is the Justice Atlas of Sentencing and Corrections of the Justice Mapping Center, a corrections data driven, interactive mapping tool. Designed to contribute to our knowledge of the place-based dimension of incarceration, reentry and community supervision in states around the USA.

Related Cases

TRAC FM

Devid Ilievski — Sat, 16 May 2026 10:40:36 +0000

TRAC FM

A free, cloud based software platform using radio and SMS to track citizen reports and collect citizen feedback.

When

2010

Where

Uganda

Who

Wouter Dijkstra, Javie Ssozi, Meier Boersma, Jurre de Beer

Website

tracfm.org

What is it?

TRAC FM is an innovative software platform used by media and non-profit organizations in Uganda to track news reports, collect opinions, and amplify citizen voices. It enables citizens to participate in interactive radio shows through SMS voting and opinions.

Building on a vibrant radio talk-show tradition in Africa, TRAC FM provides an easy to use software tool for radio-stations to involve listeners in data-driven public debates.

TRAC FM serves a wide range of citizens in East Africa, from urban youth to farmers in rural areas. It has also been applied in TV talk shows, but radio stations have a much wider reach in Uganda.

How does it work?

In response to questions broadcasted by the radio stations, listeners contribute to the discussion through an SMS line (free of charge). The TRAC FM software ensures that all incoming SMS contributions are automatically recognized, categorized and presented in clear graphics and maps.

This “visualization” is instantly updated online, to present the latest results to the talk-show host, who shares the poll results with his studio-guests and listeners. After the radio show, infographics of collected data are published in (local) print media and freely shared online.

TRAC FM software is free and cloud based, requiring no downloads, but only a secure login with a user name and password.

It also provides selected radio stations with training on how to use TRAC FM feedback to host structured radio debates, e.g. on issues of public service delivery, such as quality of roads or the performance of civil servants.

Why did they make it?

It was developed on the basis of ethnographic research about the use of new media for political participation. The Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam published the “ICT4Accountability” research project (Uganda, 2009), which presented the platform as “a distinct form of civic media which uses ICTs to systematically collect, process and deliver accurate, comprehensible and direct data with the purpose to assist citizens in making objective assessments of the performance of who-ever is taking action on their behalf.”

TRAC FM’s mission is to provide citizens and journalists with tools to amplify voices, engage in informed debate with fellow citizens, journalists and political leaders, and promote transparency and accountability.

Since 2010, more than 1,000,000 people in Uganda have participated in radio polls on 24 radio stations, facilitated by the TRAC FM platform. Radio stations using TRAC FM include Life FM (the largest), Voice of Kigezi (the smallest), and Radio Wa from Lira (the first TRAC FM partner). NGO’s that have worked with TRAC FM include Twaweza, Hivos, Free Press Unlimited, BBC Media Action (Kenya), Farm Radio International (Uganda and Tanzania), Harvest Plus and Vitens Evides International (Uganda).

TRAC FM does not receive government funding. Instead, it generates income from NGO’s who work with the tool to do surveys, monitoring and evaluation, awareness campaigns, and use it as an early warning system. NGO’s that have worked with TRAC FM include Free Press Unlimited, BBC Media Action (Kenya), Farm Radio International (Uganda and Tanzania), Harvest Plus and Vitens Evides International (Uganda).

Wouter Dijkstra initiator of Trac FM

Currently, TRAC FM is developing new software functionality to enable citizen feedback in the form of photos, videos, and interactive voice response, and it is extending beyond Uganda, collaborating with Free Press Unlimited in Somalia and the Bill Gates Foundation in Tanzania.

Why did we select it?

TRAC FM transforms radio listeners into active participants in public debate through the introduction of a user-friendly tool and hands on training for broadcasters.

By building on a strong radio tradition and using ubiquitous SMS as platform, TRAC FM maximizes impact with limited means.

It enables radio-stations to perform data-driven journalism in real time and thereby contributes to independent, fact-based journalism, and a more engaged civil society.

Extra

Lunch at school by TRAC FM: According to a survey, many children were not getting lunch at school, although only 25% took packed lunch. The same survey also found that children who don’t eat lunch at school can not learn properly. RICNET partnered with TRAC FM to benefit from TRAC FM’s versatile platform to run a radio poll.

HIV status: The United Nations General Assembly Special Session country progress report estimated that only twenty percent of Ugandans knew their HIV-status. Question: Should doctors be allowed to test and inform patients about their HIV status without the patient’s permission? The info-graphic of the results of this poll at four partner radio stations was published alongside an article in Uganda’s most popular magazine The Independent.

Radio day campaign by TRAC FM: During the World Radio Day campaign on February 13, 2014, TRAC FM worked with 10 stations to find out what people love most about radio. Gender equality was monitored by asking respondents to indicate whether they were male or female. Over 6000 responses came in from all across the country.