GIS Specialist Volunteers

GIS Specialist Role Description

The Africa Health Organisation (AHO) will be 25 years old on 14 August 2025. We seek Geographical Information Systems (GIS) volunteers to join us in celebrating our Silver Jubilee by capturing and analysing geographical data using GIS systems to help AHO make long-term plans. We are looking for multi-skilled candidates with a quantitative background for the volunteer positions of GIS & Geospatial Specialists such as GIS Analysts, GIS Programmers, GIS Technicians, Cartographers, GIS Surveyors, Remote Sensing Specialists, Urban Planners, Rural Planners, Application Developer,s GIS Environmental Scientists, Geospatial Analysts, GIS Civil Engineers, GIS Administrators, Geographers, Spatail Data Scientists, Geospatial Technicians, GIS Software Engineers, GIS Researchers and Scientists. GIS Specialists are responsible for discovering patterns and trends through spatial mapping, developing mapping applications and tools and managing a digital library of geographic maps in various file types, among other duties. GIS analysts must explain geographic trends and findings from their analyses to AHO, which requires excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Work on health projects, scoping out the nature and purpose of the information required by AHO staff and country directors.
• Collect health data from various sources to populate geographical databases. Sources include GPS systems and raw data from satellites. This includes famine and hunger maps across Africa, disease mapping, pandemic and epidemic mapping, humanitarian mapping, etc.
• Collect, store, analyse and present geographical and spatial health information.
• Analyzing spatial data through the use of mapping software.
• Discovering patterns and trends through spatial mapping of data.
• Designing digital maps with geographic data and other data sources.
• Creating "shapefiles" to merge topographical data with external data by layering external data over a topographical map.
• Producing maps showing the spatial distribution of various health data, including health statistics and humanitarian locations.
• Developing mapping applications and tools.
• Converting physical maps into a digital form for computer usage.
• Performing data munging and cleaning to convert data into its desired form.
• Produce reports on geographic data utilizing data visualizations.
• Managing a digital library of geographic maps in various file types.

Education and Experience Requirements:

• Degree in GIS, Computer Science, Geography, Geology, Geomorphology, Oceanography, Biological sciences, Medicine, Public Health, Epidemiology, Statistics, Econometrics, Mathematics, Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence (A), Surveying, Land & Hydrographic Surveying, Earth Observation and Geoinformation Management, Geoarchaeology, Environmental Management, Riverine & Estuarine Process, Environmental Politics, Spacial Planning, Environmental Remote Sensing & Geospatial Sciences, Ecology & Conservation, Geological Sciences, Satelite Data Sciences, Remote Sensing, Geoinformation Technology & Cartography, Geomatics and Management, Environmental Drone Remote Sensing, Geographic Data Science, Social Data Sciences, Health Data Sciences, Urban Spatial Sciences, AI & Geospatial Data Analysis, GIS & Climate Change, Digital Anthropology, Computational Archeology, GIS Information Technology & Computer Science, Geotechnical Engineering, Geoenvironmental Engineering, Rural Spatial Sciences, Environmental Data Science & Analytics, Earthquake Engineering and Disaster Management, Geophysical Hazads, Environmental Health Mapping, Geotechnical and Earthquake Engineering, Geotechnical Geological Engineering, Geospatial and Mapping Sciences, Engineering or related field.
• Proficiency in database programming languages such as SQL, R, or Python.
• Proficiency in front-end design languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and various mapping languages.
• Experience with mapping tools such as QGIS and Carto.
• Experience with GPS measuring tools, Remote Sensing, Python, Urban and Rural Planning
• Outstanding quantitative skill set.
• Attention to detail and good problem-solving skills.
• Analytical mindset.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.
• Good interpersonal skills.

VOLUNTEERING IS NOT A PAID JOB

ALL our Volunteer Opportunities are not paid or salaried. Do not apply if you want a paid job or plan to negotiate a pay deal with us. Volunteering allows people to give their time for free to society while gaining the experience they need when applying for future paid jobs.