Afriscout

Afriscout is a mobile app that monitors the availability of pasture and surface water using satellite data and relays it to pastoral communities to enable them to make accurate migration decisions. The technology uses community defined, custom grazing maps overlaid with satellite vegetation data that is continuously updated and accessed via mobile phone.

The app has localized maps for 29 regions that cover over 239,000 km² of grazing lands in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. The maps are created putting in mind the grazing fields for different communities and one can zoom in to 10 m². The app is optimized to allow cheaper and faster downloads of maps even in areas with unstable 2G networks.

Using the maps, one can see where pastures are located and calculate the migration distance required in order to access vegetation and water. It also provides different terrain views and historical data on vegetation.

The app also integrates peer to peer alerts where users can share useful information such as on conflicts, predators, and disease outbreaks.

Provided by the developers.

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Testing performed by the developers and external organization showed that 80%-97% of users made significantly different migration decisions based on the app. 98-100% of users found the maps to be accurate or very accurate, and 77-100%of users found the maps helpful. 17-42% of users believe the maps have reduced conflict with host communities.

No known safety hazards are related to this product.