Local community investment monitoring refers to the process of tracking, evaluating, and assessing investments made within a specific local community. It involves systematically monitoring the progress, outcomes and impacts of various investment projects such as infrastructure development, business investments, social programs and public initiatives.
This becomes crucial in ensuring transparency, accountability and the effective utilization of resources to benefit the community. Open mapping can therefore be leveraged in this process through mapping and visualization of investment projects, citizen reporting, spatial analysis and data integration from various sources including citizen generated data, government data and official reports.
This study utilized open mapping tools including OSM, QGIS and kobo collect toolbox to assess the economic impact of residential infrastructure development in Chileka township of Blantyre in Malawi. The study involved mapping residential buildings using OSM platform and QGIS, mapping business infrastructures that included private schools, shops, clinics among others(2017-2023).
This data was then integrated with economic data collected using Kobo collect toolbox through household and market interviews. The study findings show that residential infrastructure development increased siginificantly in chileka and consequently led to the expansion of private educational facilities, shops, markets as well as development of new businesses eg motocycle taxis.
The study also showed that some businesses failed to thrive (e.g cosmetic businesses) because most of the new residents prefer to go to the city center because of the perception that the area is rural and therefore deprived to offer such services.
This study highlights the role of open data mapping in facilitating data collection, analysis and visualization for investment monitoring. By utilizing open mapping for local community investment monitoring, communities can enhance their decision-making processes, ensure the alignment of investments with community needs and foster sustainable and inclusive development.
Furthermore the study also underscores the significance of community participation and feedback mechanisms in the monitoring process.