Global Workshop on Poverty and Population Mapping
On April 9, 2025, alongside the Population Association of America (PAA) Conference in Washington, DC, the "Novel Approaches to Poverty and Population Mapping" workshop convened over 80 experts from across the geospatial, socioeconomic, and development sectors. The workshop was organized by CIESIN at Columbia University with the POPGRID Data Collaborative and with support from George Washington University. The event addressed two urgent data challenges: (1) the lack of integrated, fine-scale data needed for city-led resilience planning and SDG 11 reporting on "slums"; and (2) the global collapse in funding for censuses and household surveys.
Participants shared emerging methods that integrate satellite imagery, global geospatial datasets, household survey data, and community-generated knowledge to map urban deprivation and informality. Presentations highlighted tools for classifying degrees of deprivation, participatory mapping efforts, and examples of community-validated data being used to advocate for housing rights amid climate-related displacement. A central theme was the need to move beyond slum classification to the underlying conditions that define urban poverty, and the difficulty of doing so without sufficient local validation.
The workshop emphasized that meaningful impact on urban upgrading and poverty reduction depends on a globally networked data ecosystem. In this ecosystem, community members and local governments play essential roles in validation and use; local NGOs and researchers lead data integration and indicator development; and global institutions contribute by processing large-scale Earth observation and other big data into accessible, operational building blocks. Participants also discussed the implications of declining international support for official statistics and how national statistical offices might leverage geospatial tools and data integration to meet urgent data needs in the next decade.
🔗 Explore speaker slides, recordings, and event materials: https://sites.google.com/ciesin.columbia.edu/poverty-and-population-mapping/home
