Description

ITU, together with the U4SSC Austrian Country Hub and Tanzania jointly organized the STI Forum 2023 “Side Event – Building back smarter and more sustainable cities through the United for Smart Sustainable Cities Initiative”, in partnership with the Permanent Mission of Austria to the United Nations in New York.

This side event took place virtually on 3 May 2023 from 13:15-14:45 hours, New York time, as part of the ITU’s Webinar Series on Digital Transformation. It also featured the official launch of the U4SSC Procurement Guidelines for Smart Sustainable Cities. The new guidelines provide cities with the tools to transition away from traditional approaches to more sustainable procurement practices, thereby improving their supply chain performance. Moreover, the guidelines demonstrate the potential of sustainable procurement practices to help cities achieve the SDGs successfully.

In addition to the Guidelines, the side event showcased the new Building a People-Centered Digital Future for Cities and Communities Brochure. This brochure highlights ITU’s activities and initiatives aimed at driving the development and standardization of smart sustainable cities and communities.

Cities around the world face rapid urbanization, economic constraints and environmental stressors. To address these challenges, city administrators are turning to digital technologies to reshape how services are offered in the urban environment. Digital innovation over the past two decades has been at the heart of smart sustainable cities to build more efficient and livable urban environments. By employing digital technologies cities can increase efficiencies, economic development, sustainability, and life qualify for citizens in urban areas, demonstrating how cities are accelerating their recovery from COVID-19 and achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable development at all levels.

Objective

This session aimed to directly address and highlight the promising developments in science, technology, and innovation for accelerating progress towards SDGs, in particular SDG 17, SDG 11 and SDG 9. This session explored how digital solutions can support cities and how they can be scaled up quickly to accelerate transformations across the globe. This session explored and highlighted the importance of global UN initiatives such as the United for Smart Sustainable Cities Initiative (U4SSC) and how it provides a platform to support cities managing rapid technological change. We also introduced the U4SSC Key Performance Indicators and their relevance in the context of digital transformation in cities. We highlighted how cities can use the U4SSC KPIs to benchmark their performance, identify areas for improvement, and help achieve the SDGs.

Note: The views and opinions expressed by the presenters during this event are solely those of the individual speakers and do not necessarily represent, reflect, or constitute the official stance, policy, or position of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) or its secretariat.