Page 197 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

4 Stakeholders' roles in SSC

This section explores in further detail each of the SSC stakeholders, including a brief definition of,
and an outline of the roles they are meant to take.

4.1 Municipalities, city council and city administration

Municipalities are the basis for SSC management, and are at the core of the SSC framework.
Municipalities and its departments must be the body that coordinate all the system within an
integrated technological platform. Municipalities are constantly involved in development strategies
and will hence play a pivotal role in SSC initiatives. They would also serve as a convenient contact
point for the inhabitants regarding SSC establishment.
Municipalities have to deal with the everyday problems and demands of citizens and the challenges
of city management. Shrinking municipal budgets on one side, and the need to reach national and
international targets of reduction of emissions on the other, are pushing municipalities to become
more sustainable, both environmentally and economically. Additionally, the growing demand of the
voters for transparency and citizen participation in municipal issues triggers the development of
more socially sustainable cities.

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As the main promoters on the idea of becoming a SSC , municipalities have the responsibility to
decide which path to follow, from the long‐term roadmap to the specific solutions to implement.
There is not a unique path, so each city can choose theirs depending on the qualities of the city, its
state of affairs, strengths and opportunities available. It is important that they do so thinking on the
long run, with a holistic approach, transparency and the citizen interests at its core.

One way to increase efficiency in city services is to evaluate them through objective indicators
agreed between the municipality and the service provider. To achieve this there has to be a change
from the tendering model that is currently based on assets to a model based on Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs). As the main consumers of solutions, municipalities are ideally placed to lead this
change to KPIs‐based public tender offers. For the model to work, municipalities should act as the
examiner on the performance of the services, starting by choosing what KPIs will apply, what values
have to be achieved and under what conditions and continuing with periodical evaluations.
Otherwise, the city service companies would be acting as judge and judged on their own evaluation.
Another important responsibility this stakeholder has is to engage public participation and include
the citizen on any SSC initiative. As it will be seen later, citizen engagement is pertinent to many
urban projects and even more importantly, the final objective of SSC is to enhance the satisfaction
and the quality of life of the citizenry. Most SSC projects entail benefits for the population at several
levels, but often these benefits are not perceived by the citizens. Consequently, it is recommended
that municipalities conduct efforts to communicate the decisions taken, as well as the advantages
and consequences these entail.

Regarding public participation, the city administration has to ensure that all the population is
informed and has the means needed to take part on the programs and initiatives being carried out.
Another important aspect in this area is the accessibility to public data by the citizenry. An "Open
Data" platform where the citizen can access all public data, except confidential or critical, is

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27 Informe Anual Smart Cities Telefonica.

ITU‐T's Technical Reports And Specifications 187