Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) MCP Server

Example of using HDX MCP server used in Claude Desktop

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides AI assistants access to the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) API. This provides a wide array of humanitarian data hosted on the Humanitarian Data Exchange.

This server can be installed in AI platforms such as Claude Desktop, as well as run as a remote MCP server for any AI to access.

Available Tools

🔍 Metadata & Discovery (12 tools)

• metadata_location_get - Get countries/locations in HDX
• metadata_admin1_get - Get states/provinces
• metadata_admin2_get - Get districts/counties
• metadata_data_availability_get - Check data coverage (use first!)
• metadata_dataset_get - Get dataset information
• metadata_resource_get - Get resource details
• metadata_org_get - Get organizations
• metadata_sector_get - Get humanitarian sectors
• metadata_currency_get - Get currency info
• metadata_org_type_get - Get organization types
• metadata_wfp_commodity_get - Get WFP commodities
• metadata_wfp_market_get - Get WFP markets

🚨 Affected People (4 tools)

• affected_people_refugees_get - Get refugee/persons of concern data
• affected_people_humanitarian_needs_get - Get humanitarian needs data
• affected_people_idps_get - Get internally displaced persons data
• affected_people_returnees_get - Get returnee data

🌍 Demographics & Geography (1 tool)

• geography_infrastructure_baseline_population_get - Get population data

🌦️ Climate (1 tool)

• climate_rainfall_get - Get rainfall data

🤝 Coordination & Context (4 tools)

• coordination_context_operational_presence_get - Get operational presence
• coordination_context_funding_get - Get funding data
• coordination_context_conflict_events_get - Get conflict events
• coordination_context_national_risk_get - Get national risk data

🍽️ Food Security & Poverty (3 tools)

• food_security_nutrition_poverty_food_security_get - Get food security data
• food_security_nutrition_poverty_food_prices_get - Get food prices
• food_security_nutrition_poverty_poverty_rate_get - Get poverty rates

🔧 Utilities (1 tool)

• util_version_get - Get API version

🎯 Custom HDX Tools (3 tools)

• hdx_server_info - Get server information
• hdx_get_dataset_info - Get detailed dataset info
• hdx_search_locations - Search for locations

Caveats

The HDX API offers a very rich source of Humanitarian data, but it is complex. The coverage of data by regions differs per country, as showing in the table here. This is not a technical limitation, but due to the challenging work of humanitarian organizations gathering data. This does however introduce some limitations, for example, conflict events in Afghanistan are only available at the province and district level, not national. Therefore questions about total count at the country level should not be supported as this would require gathering large volumes of disaggregated data and summation to the national level, both prohibitive and error-prone.

The MCP server provided prompts for helping LLMs identify and inform the user, but as with any LLM application, evaluation testing and ongoing monitoring is required.

Quick Start (with Docker MCP Tools)

Get a free HDX API 'Application identifier' code ...

1. Go to the api page
2. On the 'encode_app_identifier' endpoint, click 'Try it out'
3. Enter an application name for your process and your email
4. Click 'Execute'
5. Make note of the displayed application identifier code

Then install using Docker MCP Hub and MCP Toolkit (recommended) ...

1. Install Docker Desktop 4.43 or above and start
2. Activate 'MCP Tools' under Settings > Beta Features
3. Under 'MCP Tools' search for 'HDX' and add the server
4. When prompted input your app identifier from above

You can now use with various clients such as Claude Desktop (see 'Clients' section in Docker). To install using Claude Desktop ...

1. Install Claude Desktop
2. In Docker 'MCP Toolkit' select Clients and click 'Connect' next to Claude
3. Restart Claude desktop
4. Click the little slider icon 'Search and tools' on chat input box
5. Toggle on 'MCP_DOCKER'

Try asking 'What's the population of Mali on HDX?'.

Other ways to use the HDX MCP Server

UV to run a Remote Server

1. Install UV (if not already installed): curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
2. Clone this repo: git clone https://github.com/dividor/hdx-mcp.git
3. cd hdx-mcp
4. uv sync --all-extras --dev
5. cp env.example .env
6. Then Edit your .env and set HDX_APP_IDENTIFIER to the application identifier you created above
7. Run the server: uv run hdx-mcp-server --transport http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000 --verbose

Docker to Run a Remote Server

# Build the Docker image
docker build -t hdx-mcp-server .

# Run with stdio transport (for MCP clients)
docker run --rm -i --env-file .env hdx-mcp-server

# Run with HTTP transport
docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 --env-file .env hdx-mcp-server --transport http --host 0.0.0.0

Testing the server with Inspector

1. Install MCP Inspector
2. Set Transport type (top-left) to be: Streamable HTTP
3. Enter URL: http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp
4. Click Connect
5. Click on Tools or Prompts, and use the get and submit buttons to try out the server

HDX MCP Server in Claude Desktop

The easiest way to use with Claude Desktop is to use DOcker MCP Tools as indicated above. You can also install as follows ...

1. Complete the basic setup above - ensure the server works with uv run hdx-mcp-server

2. Get the absolute path to your project: bash cd /path/to/your/hdx-mcp pwd # Copy this path

3. Configure Claude Desktop:

Open Claude Desktop settings and add to your MCP servers configuration:

Option A: Using Docker (Recommended) json { "hdx-humanitarian-data": { "command": "docker", "args": ["run", "--rm", "-i", "--env-file", "/absolute/path/to/your/hdx-mcp2/.env", "hdx-mcp-server"] } }

Option B: Using UV json { "hdx-humanitarian-data": { "command": "uv", "args": ["run", "hdx-mcp-server"], "cwd": "/absolute/path/to/your/hdx-mcp" } }

Replace /absolute/path/to/your/hdx-mcp with the actual path from step 2.

1. Ensure your .env file is configured with your HDX app identifier: bash HDX_APP_IDENTIFIER=your_hdx_app_identifier_here HDX_BASE_URL=https://hapi.humdata.org

2. Restart Claude Desktop to load the new MCP server

Once configured, you should see the HDX server appear in Claude's MCP servers list.

Configuration

Environment Variables

The server is configured via environment variables. Copy env.example to .env and customize:

Complete Configuration Example

See env.example for a complete configuration template with detailed comments:

# View the configuration template
cat env.example

# Copy and edit for your environment
cp env.example .env
nano .env

Excluded Endpoints

The server automatically excludes the following endpoints: - /api/v2/encode_app_identifier - Internal utility for generating app identifiers

Logging

Enable verbose logging for debugging:

uv run hdx-mcp-server --verbose

This will show detailed information about: - Server initialization - OpenAPI spec loading - Tool registration - HTTP requests and responses - Error details

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for detailed development guidelines, testing instructions, and contribution workflow.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Related Resources

• HDX (Humanitarian Data Exchange)
• HDX HAPI Documentation
• Model Context Protocol Specification
• FastMCP Documentation

Support

For issues related to: - This MCP server: Open an issue in this repository - HDX API: Consult HDX HAPI documentation - MCP protocol: See MCP specification - FastMCP library: Check FastMCP documentation

Issues & Feedback

• Issues & Suggestions: Please raise an issue for any bugs, feature requests, or suggestions
• Security Issues: For security-related concerns, please raise an issue to be contacted privately

Note: This server requires a valid HDX API app identifier. Please ensure you comply with HDX's terms of service and rate limiting guidelines when using this server.