Enumerating and Mapping Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

Thanks to Debbie Fugate for pointing me to a newly posted video by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees showing us how they are conducting an interactive census of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh who have fled Myanmar in recent weeks. The UNHCR has a crew of about 100 enumerators who are visiting each of the households that have been set up in a huge refugee encampment housing about 500,000 people. Enumerators give each household an ID number and tag. Those tags have GPS coordinates, allowing the UN to know where each household is located physically. You can see this in the map below, that I have grabbed from their video:

On their real-time maps, they are able to click on a red dot, and the characteristics of that household are displayed. This is really pretty cool, I must say. And, of course, the hope is that with these kinds of data, the refugees will more easily receive the kind of aid they need.