Smart Cities Behing the Scenes: Governance, Viability & Capacities

The digital transformation leads to significant changes in how cities are understood, developed and lived. Modern information and communication technologies (ICT) are spreading in all urban sectors and smartphones are ubiquitous in cities all over the world. The digitalization offers cities and municipalities opportunities to reduce resource consumption, enhance transparency and participation, increase efficiency of administrative processes and improve quality of life in cities for everyone.

Nevertheless, the digital transformation has to be actively shaped: Digital solutions remain tools towards sustainable and inclusive urban development and are not a goal itself.

Digitalization also poses challenges for municipalities. They are confronted with dynamically evolving technology, questions of data governance, or the danger of increasing digital divide.

To make the digital transformation at the local level sustainable and use its potentials for the effective implementation of the New Urban Agenda (NUA) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) international partnership and learning from each other is necessary. The side event looks behind the scenes of smart cities and focuses on governance, viability and capacities for sustainable and inclusive Smart Cities. Thus, the event aims to internationally disseminate and enrich the dialogue around Cities and Digitalization with the following three objectives:

o Enhanced awareness on the potentials and challenges of information and Enhanced awareness on the potentials and challenges of information and communication technologies (ICT) for implementing the New Urban Agenda (NUA);

o Newly built and strengthened strategic partnerships for sustainable Smart Cities;

o Increased knowledge about Smart Cities approaches to implement the NUA by disseminating best practices and showcasing concrete examples.