Page 7 - ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services – Executive Summary

Introduction

The United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiative is a distinctive global smart city platform. This
unique initiative launched by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe (UNECE) in May 2016 is supported by 16 United Nations agencies.
The U4SSC has embraced the following definition for smart sustainable cities developed by ITU and UNECE:

“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.”

The U4SSC has been facilitating knowledge sharing and partnership building on smart cities, with the aim of
formulating strategic guidelines to implement the New Urban Agenda, the Paris Agreement, Connect 2020
Agenda and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, among others.
The U4SSC will be completing its first phase in April 2017. Within a short time frame, the initiative has grown
by leaps and bounds and continues to receive contributions to its work from across the globe.
After nearly ten gruelling months of work and deliberations, the U4SSC members have prepared a series of
case studies and products, which will catapult successful measures into the global spotlight for adoption. The
resulting case studies and products have been slotted within different sections based on their topic, scope
and international relevance.

This flipbook gathers the U4SSC work done during phase 1 and maps the case studies and other U4SSC
products to the various international agreements and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Based on
this mapping throughout this flipbook, U4SSC aims to derive best practices and guidelines to propel the
transition to smart cities and simultaneously achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The outputs
presented in this flipbook are expected to provide urban stakeholders with an overview of innovative
concepts, policies and frameworks adopted in various countries to facilitate smart city transformations.

As the first phase draws to a close, this progressively evolving initiative will build on its existing vision to
incorporate growing urban sustainability needs and attempt to expand on its existing scope and outreach to
continue to support smart city transitions across the world.

U4SSC series 3