Page 183 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

Setting the stage for stakeholders’ engagement in smart sustainable cities
Executive summary

This Technical Report has been developed as part of the mandate of the International
Telecommunication Union's (ITU) Focus Group on Smart Sustainable Cities (FG‐SSC). It responds to
the need for identifying and mapping the different stakeholders that are involved in the
development of Smart Sustainable Cities (SSC), to foster broad cross‐sectoral engagement and
participation in SSC strategies.

In addition to identifying the key stakeholders' roles and responsibilities within SSC, the report aims
at providing a series of recommendations to ensure the effective integration of these stakeholders
in the design, implementation and assessment of SSC operations.
This report argues that, despite the potential of SSC to overcome the challenges posed by rapid
urbanization and heightened vulnerability due to stressors such as climate change, SSC also face
operational, financial, technological and human resource challenges, including the effective
engagement and participation of citizens since the inception of SSC strategies.
The analysis suggests that, in order to overcome these aforementioned challenges and take
advantage of potential opportunities, SSC decision makers need to effectively integrate multiple key
stakeholders in the process of transformation of their cities into smart sustainable cities.

In order to facilitate this integration the report suggests a methodology to identify and map key
stakeholders, based on the principles of the Logical Framework Approach (LFA). Building on that,
the analysis identifies the role and responsibilities of each of the stakeholders involved in the
effective functioning of SSCs, including municipalities and city administration, national and regional
governments, city services companies and utility providers, ICT companies, NGOs, multilateral
organizations, industry associations, urban planners, academia, scientific community and research
organizations, citizens and citizen organizations, and standardization bodies.
This Technical Report indicates that, in order to foster an inclusive approach, city decision makers
should take into account the diversity of stakeholders supporting the development of a SSC initiative
or project. This report describes three steps to accomplish this: (1) developing an initial stakeholder
identification process; (2) categorizing and identifying the relationships among them, and (3)
conducting a detailed analysis of all stakeholders' interests to identify their role and contribution to
the SSC.

The document concludes with general recommendations on SSC stakeholder integration, by
presenting a summary table identifying SSC stakeholders, their scale/sector of operations, their key
aims and challenges, strengths and constraints associated with their role, and their expected
contribution to the SSC's rollout.

ITU‐T's Technical Reports And Specifications 173