The striking image of northeastern Kenya captures a tapestry of rugged terrain, captured by Landsat. The right side features textures reminiscent of rusted metal, while dark green areas mark recent lava flows. Other hues represent varied soil types across the landscape. CREDIT: contains modified Landsat data, courtesy of USGS. LICENCE: CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
As a key partner in the GeoField initiative, Mercy Corps is playing a crucial role in helping to advance the integration of Earth Observation (EO) into climate-sensitive agriculture and development programs. We recently caught up with their team to learn more about their focus areas, contributions, and excitement for the future of GeoField.
Mercy Corps brings a unique focus to GeoField through its expertise in program data—the critical information collected by monitoring and evaluation (M&E) teams during project implementation. Their work centers on determining how well this data currently supports geospatial impact evaluations (GIEs) and identifying areas for improvement to make GIEs more effective within humanitarian contexts.
"Our focus is on ensuring program data can effectively support geospatial evaluations, and we’re exploring how to improve standard M&E practices to make GIEs more feasible across the sector”
By refining how program data is collected and applied in GIEs, Mercy Corps is helping to make impactful evaluations more accessible, ensuring that EO insights can be harnessed even in the most challenging environments.
Mercy Corps is also spearheading the MRED (Managing Risk through Economic Development) use case. The MRED project spans multiple countries and focuses on resilience-based interventions designed to mitigate risks in agriculture. This case study presents a model for scaling GIE techniques across other programs within Mercy Corps.
"The MRED project is helping us integrate GIE approaches into our ongoing work with program teams, making these methods a part of future planning across Mercy Corps," the team explained.
Through MRED, Mercy Corps is demonstrating how GeoField tools can be practically applied to enhance resilience and inform decision-making for long-term sustainability.
One of Mercy Corps’ key strengths within the GeoField partnership is their deep understanding of the realities of humanitarian and development work. They bring invaluable practical knowledge of how data is collected and managed in complex environments, ensuring that the tools and techniques developed through GeoField are applicable in the field.
"Our experience in managing data collection in often fragile environments allows us to provide valuable insights into how GIEs can be implemented at scale," a Mercy Corps representative noted.
This hands-on expertise ensures that GeoField’s work is grounded in real-world settings, helping to close the gap between EO technology and field operations.
As GeoField continues to grow, Mercy Corps is excited about the potential to further embed GIEs into future project designs. The team is looking forward to documenting best practices and proactively incorporating geospatial impact evaluations into new program proposals.
"We’re eager to continue refining GIE practices and incorporating them into our future projects. This will ensure that GIEs become a standard part of our evaluations, helping us to better understand and support resilience-building in agriculture," the team expressed.
Mercy Corps’ involvement in GeoField is driving innovation in how humanitarian and development programs are evaluated, helping to ensure that the insights gleaned from EO are applied to create meaningful, lasting impact.
