Inside Africa: Young Ugandans Filled COVID “Blank Spots” On The Map. Now They’re Working Under A Legal Cloud
When COVID‑19 reached Uganda’s borders, authorities and humanitarian agencies faced a fundamental obstacle: much of the terrain they needed to monitor for the virus’ spread was poorly mapped. In response, youth mapping groups stepped in to fill crucial data gaps, and did so in a country where online activity is governed by increasingly restrictive laws on digital expression.
According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, youth in Uganda organised through Geo YouthMappers and partners used open mapping tools such as OpenStreetMap to improve “data availability for the COVID‑19 planning and actions of government and field responders” in underserved areas, including border districts that had been “blank spots” in existing datasets. The humanitarian mapping organisation HOT (Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team) reports that MapUganda, working with the Uganda Red Cross and YouthMappers, remotely mapped all 40 border entry towns identified as critical for surveillance.
HOT’s 2020–21 annual report states that volunteers in Uganda mapped 27 border towns, adding more than 250,000 buildings, over 7,000 kilometres of roads and more than 400 kilometres of waterways, and that these data supported the Ministry of Health and Red Cross activities during the pandemic. YouthMappers’ own accounts describe three‑month campaigns in which university chapters contributed to COVID‑19 rapid response projects through mapping settlements, health facilities and other key features.
YouthMappers defines its network as university‑based groups that “create and use open spatial data” for community development and humanitarian purposes. In neighboring Kenya, youth‑led mapping of informal settlements in Nairobi during Covid‑19, conducted with UN‑Habitat and local partners, produced open datasets on health facilities and service gaps that informed prevention and response efforts. In Tanzania, the Solomon Mahlangu College of Science and Education (SMCoSE) YouthMappers chapter at Sokoine University of Agriculture has used open‑source, collaborative mapping and “geographical citizen science” to generate updated flood‑risk and evacuation‑route data that decision‑makers rely on for disaster‑preparedness and early‑warning systems. In Uganda, MapUganda and YouthMappers have documented projects mapping informal settlements in Kampala to support relief efforts, and building datasets that can be reused for planning and service delivery.
These initiatives sit within what the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) calls the country’s “digital civic space”, the online environment where citizens and organisations use digital tools to participate in public life. In practice, the border‑mapping projects gave local responders and authorities shared, open maps that could be used for COVID‑19 surveillance, logistics and longer‑term planning.
Documented accounts by UN DESA, HOT, YouthMappers and the Uganda Red Cross consistently present these youth‑led mapping efforts as positive contributions to public‑service delivery and disaster response, not as activities in conflict with the state. There is, in the available material, no indication that these specific projects have been targeted by law‑enforcement or restricted by regulators.
At the same time, the broader legal context for digital activity in Uganda has changed.. Uganda’s Computer Misuse Act, originally enacted in 2011, addresses offences such as unauthorized access to computer systems and related cybercrime. In 2022, Parliament passed the Computer Misuse (Amendment) Act, which, according to the Law Library of Congress and CIPESA, introduced new provisions on sharing of unsolicited information, misuse of social media, and sending or sharing false, malicious and unsolicited information.
Human rights and press freedom organizations have raised concerns about how these provisions are applied. Amnesty International describes the amendment as a “draconian law aimed at suppressing freedom of expression online” and notes that provisions on “offensive communication” have been used against critics who post on social media. The International Federation of Journalists similarly warns that the law will silence journalists by exposing them to prosecution for content deemed offensive or malicious.
CIPESA’s analysis of the amendment argues that some sections are too broad and vague, and that they introduce harsh penalties, including prison terms of up to 10 years – which could deter legitimate online expression. In its Simplified Guide on laws regulating Uganda’s digital civic space, CIPESA lists the Computer Misuse Act alongside several other laws that can affect online civic engagement, and emphasizes that restrictions should meet international standards of legality, necessity and proportionality.
Taken together, these sources indicate that the legal environment for digital speech and data sharing in Uganda has become more constrained, even though the laws do not single out mapping activities.
Available documentation does not show open‑mapping organisations such as Geo YouthMappers or MapUganda being prosecuted or banned under the Computer Misuse Act. The public record instead frames their COVID‑related work as a constructive contribution to public health and disaster response.
However, legal analyses by CIPESA and statements from Amnesty and others suggest that broad categories like offensive communication, malicious information, or unauthorised sharing of information may have a chilling effect on a wide range of online actors, including journalists and civil‑society groups. It is therefore reasonable to say that youth‑led digital initiatives operate in an environment where the boundaries of permissible online activity can feel uncertain, even if they have not been directly targeted.
For mapping groups, this may translate into increased attention to issues such as data‑protection compliance, consent, and the choice of which datasets to publish openly, especially where information touches on sensitive topics like security infrastructure or politically contested areas. The publicly available sources do not provide detailed internal accounts of how Ugandan mapping groups adjust their practices in response to these laws, so specific descriptions of their internal risk‑management strategies are speculative.
What the documented record does show is a clear tension between two trends. On one side, institutions such as UN DESA and HOT highlight youth mapping in Uganda as an example of how young people can support decision‑making and public‑service delivery using digital tools and open data. On the other, legal analyses and rights‑group reports describe a digital environment in which online expression faces tighter controls and potentially severe penalties.
The maps are still online, and the young Ugandans who drew them are cited in official and humanitarian reports as partners in crisis response. Yet the legal ground beneath that work is shifting. As Uganda’s Computer Misuse (Amendment) Act and related regulations take fuller effect, a sharper question now hangs over projects built on open data and public participation: will initiatives like youth‑driven mapping continue to be welcomed as collaborators in governance and disaster response, or will they find their room for manoeuvre quietly shrinking?
For now, the answer appears mixed. The border‑mapping datasets produced during COVID‑19 remain accessible, and they are cited by international and regional bodies as examples of positive youth engagement. At the same time, watchdogs warning about the impact of Uganda’s computer‑misuse legislation argue that, without clearer safeguards for online civic activity, many actors may err on the side of caution.
In that sense, the story of Uganda’s youth mappers is not just about filling blank spaces on a map. It also illustrates how young people’s contributions to public data and public health can flourish in emergencies, yet still depend on the long‑term shape of the country’s digital civic space.
