​​​Fourth meeting of the United for Smart Sustainable Cities Initiative (U4SSC)
Valencia, Spain, 03 October 2019

Contact: Cristina Bueti

Introduction
“A smart sustainable city is an innovative city that uses information and communication technologies (ICTs) and other means to improve quality of life, efficiency of urban operation and services, and competitiveness, while ensuring that it meets the needs of present and future generations with respect to economic, social, environmental as well as cultural aspects.”

As part of the United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) Initiative, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is organizing the Fourth meeting of the U4SSC Initiative. This meeting will be held in conjunction with the 9^th Green Standards Week which will take place from 1-4 October in Valencia, Spain.

The United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiative is a UN initiative supported by 16 UN agencies and programmes to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 11: "Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable." The U4SSC serves as the global platform to advocate for public policy and to encourage the use of ICTs to facilitate and ease the transition to smart sustainable cities. 

U4SSC is an international platform for smart city stakeholders to shape smart sustainable cities worldwide. U4SSC advocates for public policies to encourage the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to facilitate and ease the transition to smart sustainable cities.

The U4SSC, therefore, is strongly committed to supporting the adoption of policies, standards and key performance indicators (KPIs) that encourage the integration of ICTs in the urban realm and foster the establishment of smart sustainable cities across the globe.

ITU is organizing the fourth meeting of the United for Smart Sustainable Cities Initiative (U4SSC) on 3 October 2019 in Valencia, Spain. 
    
Objectives
The main objectives of the meeting are to:

• revise the terms of reference of the U4SSC;
• present the set of deliverables developed within U4SSC in 2018;
• provide a platform to present views on recent trends and explore opportunities to identify strategies on, inter alia, standardization, integration & interoperability to build smarter and more sustainable cities;
• deliberate on the future activities and develop an action plan for 2019-2020;
• launch the U4SSC Verification Report.