A new early warning platform for displacement movements, protection issues and security incidents was created by the Information Management Team of the Protection Cluster in the CAR, under the leadership of UNHCR and the co-facilitation of the Danish Refugee Council. The platform, accessible at https://ewarningcar.crowdmap.com, is based on the concept of crowdsourcing. Namely, the online collection of information from local communities, NGOs, international organizations, the media and other actors.

The creation of this tool covers the need for timely information gathering, in case of security incidents or humanitarian needs. All interested parties can send reports on specific incidents to the Information Management Team by telephone, email or by posting them directly on the platform. In less than 24 hours, the Team verifies the credibility and the validity of the reports, while “cleaning” them of all confidential information, like the identities of the victims in the case there was an attack. Subsequently, the Team posts the reports on a map, which gives a general view of the situation in the Central African Republic.

The reports can be in the form of texts, videos or photographs. They can be categorized as follows: security incidents affecting the local population, security incidents affecting NGOs, humanitarian access, reported presence of armed groups, IDP sites, new internal displacement, IDPs living outside of sites, conflicts, groups at risk, suggested humanitarian response, alert for the protection of children and alert for the protection of women.

The swift transmission of verified information through this platform can act as a support to humanitarian actors for ad hoc field missions, leading to concrete actions for the protection of civilians. It also permits the daily verification of the situation in various areas of the country and the monitoring of the trends in problematic zones.

The platform was created with the open-source crowd-mapping software Ushahidi.