Global MapAid or simply “MapAid” is a social enterprise, a UK and US registered not-for-profit, working in Africa with local and international organisations. We support their decision-making through mapping of groundwater, so that better shallow well programmes and other soil conservation programmes may be implemented to benefit the lives of small farmers.

We were founded at Stanford University in 2003, and are registered in the USA and the UK with a relatively large group of unpaid volunteers and associates across the world. Our erstwhile Patron was Desmond Tutu.

The origins of MapAid were in identifying and mapping local solutions across the world, to help prevent disasters. Later we moved into mapping to support solutions to unemployment. Our maps have always benefitted time-poor people from policymakers to donors, to CSG organisations and ordinary people, by focusing efforts and funding where most needed. Additionally, some of our maps have been designed for use by vulnerable people.

We were founded at Stanford University in 2003, and are registered in the USA and the UK with a relatively large group of unpaid volunteers and associates across the world. Our erstwhile Patron was Desmond Tutu.

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At present, we are working in Ethiopia and Malawi. Climate change, the war in Ukraine, and the Covid pandemic have all conspired to make life more difficult for the whole world, but especially small farmers in Africa, whose food supply depends on increasingly erratic rainfall on their small farms.