Smart Cities for a Green and Resilient Urban Development

Three high-level, consecutive panels presented and discussed cutting-edge smart city approaches from the planning use of digital twins to frameworks for securing and monitoring prosperity. The symposium provided the opportunity to present various national policy frameworks and data strategies as well as numerous use cases to combine practical and theoretical aspects of smart city planning while demonstrating the broad spectrum of actions being taken.

In their opening speeches, Rolf Bösinger, State Secretary, Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building (BMWSB), Germany, and Kunal Kumar, Smart City Mission Director and Joint Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), India, emphasised the role of digital solutions and smart city measures in making cities more resilient. While Bösinger highlighted the value and potential of data, similar to that of natural resources, Kunal Kumal emphasised the crucial role of the ISCN in facilitating much-needed international exchange.

The first panel focussed on national approaches to urban data. Representatives from Germany, India and Brazil presented their national strategies and explained how their respective national governments support local public administration in handling urban data. Participants explained the role that national governments play in promoting smart city processes by setting frameworks and overarching strategies as well as providing funding for innovative solutions to make cities smarter, greener and more resilient. 

All speakers emphasised the importance of high-quality data as a basis for combating climate change and achieving national climate targets. With insights into various application examples - from early warning systems for flooding to citizen apps that incentivise climate-friendly behaviour - they showed the wide range of local solutions that derive from these frameworks and strategies and underlined the importance of national strategies in combination with specific local measures.

Digital twins - in combination with AI - offer the ability to visualise and analyse complex data in a geographical context, providing insights for better urban planning. This session demonstrated how these tools are used in a range of contexts and regions in different ways, depending on the challenges, needs and goals of a particular city: whether it is to visualise social and economic stratification to develop policies to reduce social and economic inequalities, to manage decentralised energy districts or to simulate the consequences of certain decisions in traffic management or urban planning. 

The participants not only explained how the use of these tools helps to achieve the Net Zero goals and make cities more resilient, but also emphasised the importance of public accountability and transparent processes when using AI-based tools.

How can the promise of fast and efficient scaling and replication be realised? With representatives from the European Union and the Japanese Smart City Institute, the third panel focussed on the role of co-creation and international cross-city collaboration to achieve local climate goals. Both speakers emphasised the role of overarching frameworks, political support and pioneering cities as a starting point for further developments. 

In the context of the EU, the "Climate-Neutral & Smart Cities Mission" with its goal of making 100 European cities climate-neutral by 2030 is a central measure in which digitalisation is understood as a horizontal enabler of measures against climate change. 

In Japan, a people-centred approach to smart and resilient cities is being pursued, with 27 pioneering cities using digital technologies to achieve a higher quality of life in the cities, which is measured using "well-being" indicators. In explaining their respective projects, both speakers emphasised the importance of digital components in addressing societal and environmental challenges, as well as peer learning support through national and international exchange.

Martha Gutierrez, Head of the Global Policy, Governance and Cities Department at the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ), gave the closing remarks. She summarised the most important findings and formulated the following message:

Today's challenges require responses that combine digital solutions and measures to combat climate change and inequality.

This means that citizens and administrations must be mobilised to jointly shape a process oriented towards the common good.

To achieve this ambitious goal, standardised solutions need to be developed that can be adapted by cities on a large scale.

Local action and cooperation between cities, including to optimise budgets, are crucial.