Page 9 - Implementing Sustainable Development Goal 11 by connecting sustainability policies and urban-planning practices through ICTs

United for Smart Sustainable Cities
Implementing Sustainable Development Goal 11 by connecting sustainability policies
and urban-planning practices through ICTs

Figure 2  Proposed Future Living Framework

ICT functionalities in the framework are designed for “two-way smartness”, so that it will serve as both an
implementation and a monitoring and control tool to assess the performance associated with implementing
the policies (evaluative smartness).

UN-Habitat, the leading United Nations agency working towards a better urban future, has provided several
basic principles related to urban sustainability in its reports. These principles can aid the provision of urban
smartness based on ICT interventions, and assist with the execution and evaluation of performance vis-à-vis
the sustainable development goals. For this section, the following UN-Habitat reports have been used as the
primary source to understand the basic role of urban planning, and to derive planning principles for the
implementation of SDG 11:

1) UN-HABITAT Planning Sustainable Cities: Global Report on Human Settlements 2009 sets four basic
roles for urban planning:
 addressing rapid urbanization, urban poverty, and proliferation of slums;

 addressing sustainable urban development and climate change;
 addressing urban crime and violence;
 addressing post-conflict and post-disaster situations.

To address sustainable urban development and climate change, this report sets out 8 essential aims, gathered
under the policy referred to as “Bridging the Green and Brown Agendas”:
 development of renewable energy;
 striving for carbon-neutral cities;

 distributed power and water systems;
 increasing photosynthetic spaces4 as part of green infrastructure;
 improving eco-efficiency;
 increasing sense of place;
 sustainable transport;

 developing cities without slums.

4 Area utilized for photosynthesis. Photosynthesis in the process through which plants and other autotrophs convert
light energy from the sun into chemical energy (using carbon dioxide and water). The chemical energy derived from
this process is store as carbohydrates. Oxygen is a by-product of photosynthesis.
U4SSC series 3