2017•10•04     Guimarães

Between 2-4 October, representatives from the World Bank New Delhi office visited the United Nation University Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance in Guimarães to discuss a number of Smart City initiatives for future corporation, which include ICT-enabled integration for green growth portal, competence development and training courses, and pilots for UNU-EGOV’s Smart City Framework.

Smart Vision

Smart City is the new concept for addressing the challenges of urbanization pressure and for achieving sustainable development of countries, regions, cities, villages, and communities. The Smart City vision is underpinned by all the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, in particular, the following: how to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable (Goal 11); how to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all (Goal 8); how to facilitate a resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation (Goal 9); and how to promote just, peaceful, and inclusive societies (Goal 16).

With a strong focus on the smart cities concept as a way for achieving sustainable development of cities and communities, the objective of the visit to UNU-EGOV was three-fold: firstly, discuss a number of initiatives for future corporation; secondly, as part of an open seminar, present the recently launched ICT-enabled integration for green growth portal, the 100 Smart City initiative, the 500 Smart Villages initiative, a case study on intelligent transportation systems and UNU-EGOV’s research on Smart Cities; thirdly, to engage with a number of Portuguese projects regarding traffic, waste, water, and energy management.

Areas of potential cooperation

With a focus on sustainable development and smart city initiatives, the three-day programme was centred on the need to develop competencies and capabilities on building and implementing Smart City initiatives, villages, and rural areas. It was also discussed the possibility to validate UNU-EGOV’s Smart City Framework by testing it with a number of Indian Smart Cities and form the core of future training activities on smart cities in India for a later global extension.

On top, one of the presentations during the 3-day visit. On the bottom, UNU-EGOV researchers, Head of the Operating Unit, and World Bank New Delhi office representatives.