In 2023, a shared vision emerged to make geospatial skills more accessible, consistent, and sustainable across the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Initiated by the British, German, and Netherlands Red Cross Societies and HeiGIT, the GIS Training Working Group was established to strengthen coordinated GIS capacity development across the network.
The IFRC Network GIS Training Platform stands as a key outcome of the Working Group’s efforts and serves as the primary hub for sharing knowledge and resources. It brings together humanitarian GIS training materials, practical exercises, and methodological guidance in one accessible space. Designed as a collaborative learning environment, the platform enables National Societies to use and build upon existing content while promoting greater alignment and efficiency across the network. A detailed overview of the platform’s background and key features is available in this article.
Why a IFRC GIS Training Platform?
National Societies around the world increasingly rely on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to support disaster response, preparedness, and risk analysis. Yet they face similar challenges: Limited access to structured, high-quality training materials, related expert and peer networks, lack of coordination across regions. Therefore, considerable time and resources need to be spent developing local training content from scratch, and GIS capacity remained uneven within the network.
The Working Group responded by contributing to a centralized, open training ecosystemthat now includes 150 multilingual pages, 29 module chapters and 30 hands-on exercises. This year alone, we have already added three new exercises tracks that build on one another to simulate a realistic scenario.
The IFRC GIS Training Platform promotes a coordinated and sustainable approach to GIS capacity strengthening, provides openly available training materials accessible to all National Societies, reduces the effort required to develop local trainings, and increases both the quantity and quality of GIS learning opportunities across the Movement.
Trainings Across the Globe
Since its creation, the Working Group has further extended and improved the IFRC Network GIS Training Platform, delivering trainings that have steadily expanded in reach and impact.
In July 2024, an online pilot training for staff from the British, German, and Netherlands Red Cross Societies laid the foundation for future courses. In November 2024, the first regional rollout followed, bringing together ten National Societies from the Middle East and North Africa. By July 2025, the initiative reached a major milestone when 26 African National Societies participated in a regional training, demonstrating both demand and scalability. In November 2025, the Latin America and Caribbean training in Colombia gathered 13 participants from nine National Societies, combining regional collaboration with in-person learning.
The IFRC Network GIS Training Platform continues to be in high demand and, with a strong focus on Training of Trainers in 2026, aims to enable more National Societies to train their own staff, adapt content locally, and strengthen peer-to-peer learning. To further support this, a series of upcoming trainings is planned to expand reach and reinforce regional capacity. This includes training sessions in English and French for multiple African NS staff and local trainings delivered by participants of previous Training of Trainers programs, which will also contribute to improving and adapting the platform through community inputs.
Impact Beyond the Classroom
The trainings have contributed to a growing and increasingly connected GIS community within National Societies. Participants have become multipliers, sharing knowledge with colleagues and strengthening institutional capacity in their societies and communities. The initiative has fostered closer exchange among Working Group members and previous training attendees and improved understanding of each society’s processes, tools, and operational contexts. It has also highlighted synergies in approaches that make collaboration more efficient and impactful.
What began as a training effort is evolving into a network of practitioners who learn from and support one another. In the last year, the IFRC Network GIS Training Platform has doubled its usage, reaching 27,800 visits in one year (with an average of about 700 views per week). Users accessed the training materials from 160 different countries, making it a true global platform for GIS learning.
Breaking Language Barriers
Accessibility remains central to the Working Group’s mission. Core modules of the platform have been translated into French, and selected content is now available in Spanish. Building on this progress, a more structured approach is being developed to support future translations in additional languages based on regional needs. The goal is to create a sustainable framework that enables National Societies to contribute to and benefit from multilingual content.
What Comes Next… Building a Community of Practice
As the network of trained practitioners grows, the Working Group is establishing a Community of Practice that connects previous training participants and new interested National Societies members.
This community aims to provide a space where members can share ideas, innovations, and practical solutions, discuss challenges and lessons learned from field applications, exchange tools, workflows, and national experiences, and foster collaboration across regions and contexts. By linking practitioners across the Movement, the Community of Practice will support sustainable growth of expertise and ensure that knowledge continues to evolve through real-world use and shared experience. It will also strengthen peer-to-peer learning and mentorship, enabling National Societies to support one another directly.
By enabling local trainings, multilingual access, continuous exchange, and contributions from the community, the initiative aims to ensure that GIS capacity grows organically and sustainably within each region. As more National Societies join, the IFRC GIS Training Platform is becoming a real community of practice that joins forces to strengthen GIS knowledge and resilience in the humanitarian sector.
The platform development, translation and regional training in the Americas were funded by the German Federal Foreign Office (GFFO) through the ‚Globalprojekt II“ and the Klaus Tschira Stiftung (KTS) as part of the project “Strengthening Geoinformatics for the German Red Cross’ International Humanitarian Activities – Expanding the Cooperation with HeiGIT.
Are you interested in becoming a GIS training facilitator, or would you like to join the community as an organization? Reach out to us via gis-training-platform@heigit.org.
