UNDP GeoHub

Period: December 2021 – August 2025

Organization: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), SDG Integration Team, Bureau for Policy and Programme Support

Role: GIS Consultant → Full Stack GIS Developer

Links: GeoHub · GitHub (UNDP-Data/geohub)

Background

UNDP has developed a corporate data strategy to accelerate its transformation into a data-driven organization, and geospatial data plays an important role in it. However, the large-scale adoption of geospatial data had been obstructed by data silos across country offices, lack of interoperability, and limited infrastructure and know-how. GeoHub was developed as a part of the Data Futures Exchange (DFx) to solve these issues.

What is GeoHub?

GeoHub is a centralized ecosystem of geospatial data and services to support development work. It allows users without geospatial skills — UNDP staff and policymakers — to:

• search, visualize and download a wide array of datasets, including satellite imagery and spatio-temporal model data
• upload their own datasets through a data upload pipeline
• compute dynamic statistics and run raster analytics
• create maps and share them with the community easily

Architecture

• Frontend: SvelteKit and MapLibre GL JS web applications
• Backend: PostgreSQL/PostGIS, titiler, pg_tileserv and other FOSS4G software deployed on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
• Cloud: Azure App Service, Blob Storage, PubSub
• Data: Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF, vector tiles and STAC catalogues
• All source code is published on GitHub under an open-source license

Main features I developed

• Landing page to direct users to each part of GeoHub
• Social login (GitHub authentication and UN B2C authentication)
• Data upload pipeline
• User permission management for datasets and maps
• UI/UX improvements for data visualization with MapLibre
• Raster analytical features (titiler algorithms)
• Static image API to generate static map images from a saved MapLibre style

Related talks

• FOSS4G 2023 Prizren: UNDP’s one stop shop for cloud based geospatial data visualisation and analytical tool
• FOSS4G 2023 Prizren: Development of maplibre applications in sveltekit
• FOSS4G Europe 2024 Tartu: Leave no one behind - UNDP GeoHub

See also RAPIDA, a crisis assessment tool integrated with GeoHub.

Skills

MapLibre, Mapbox, Svelte/SvelteKit, Node.js (JavaScript/TypeScript), Python, PostgreSQL/PostGIS, titiler, pg_tileserv, STAC, Azure (AKS, App Service, Blob Storage, PubSub)