Data visualizations to raise awareness of illegal pushbacks

The challenge

Mare Liberum started to build a database of documented cases of pushbacks in March 2020. Their main goal is to communicate and visually present the findings of their work for advocacy, PR and reporting. Prior to their collaboration with CorrelAid, however, the data was sparsely used.

The data

The data consisted of an Excel sheet with just over 300 documented cases of pushbacks (rows) and 15 variables with further information. The variables provide information such as the location and date of the incident, the number of people involved and other information about the sources.

The solution

The CorrelAid team cleaned the data set, extracted additional variables and produced various data visualisations for the annual report of Mare Liberum. The initial cleaning of the data was done in Python, but the subsequent analysis was done in R, as some prior knowledge of the programming language was already held by the organisation, ensuring sustainability of the data product. Lastly, the team developed an approach on how Mare Liberum may collect and store data in the future to increase data quality.

The impact

The Data4Good project empowered Mare Liberum to use existing valuable data and leverage it for advocacy, PR and reporting in a coherent and convincing manner. The created visualizations for the annual pushback report contribute to increasing the visibility and attention of the issue. Through the enhancing of data quality, the organization will be able to generate deeper and more reliable insights on the practice of illegal pushbacks in the Mediterranian sea. Due to the use of existing knowledge inside the organization, the Data4Good project is not only impactful but also sustainable.