Page 26 - Digital solutions for integrated city management and use cases: A U4SSC deliverable on city platforms

Box 1: United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC)

The United for Smart Sustainable Cities initiative

Established in 2016, United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) is a United Nations initiative
coordinated by ITU, UNECE and UN-Habitat, and supported by 14 other United Nations
entities. Since its creation, this initiative has been helping cities to achieve Sustainable
Development Goal (SDG) 11: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient
and sustainable” by coupling key smart and sustainable city endeavours with the core targets
stipulated within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The activities of U4SSC
are aligned with the New Urban Agenda, which is the latest guideline document of the
bidecennial United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development.

U4SSC serves as the global platform for advocating the formulation of public policy and
encouraging the use of ICTs to facilitate the transition of cities to smart sustainable cities.
It is a collaborative platform that seeks to develop innovative solutions and elevate best
practices through an inclusive and participatory process.

U4SSC’s work on smart sustainable cities spans several different areas. These areas are the
focus of U4SSC’s various thematic groups, which include the group on City Platforms that
is responsible for this report.

The cases featured in this report (listed in Table 1) were collected through two means. First,
research was conducted to identify examples of successful smart city platform deployments all
across the world. Secondly, an elicitation exercise was conducted whereby cities, communities and
municipalities participating in the U4SSC initiative were asked to detail their smart city strategies,
the governance of smart projects, and the principal role of a smart city platform (or set of key
components that constitute it).

Cities participating in U4SSC’s KPI implementation have described the technological architecture
of their main solutions and the different “smart” enabling components and solutions for citizens
and municipal services. The respondents also described the technical, administrative and project
management organization that supports their city’s strategy as well as their competencies. They
defined their strategic SSC direction, as demonstrated by their commitment to standards (both in
the procedural and technological aspects) and the use of ICTs in the management of U4SSC key
performance indicators (KPIs). Finally, the smart sustainable cities described their relationship with
their citizens, the innovation ecosystem and the networks they depend on for the design, sharing
and replication of smart and sustainable city solutions.

14 U4SSC: Digital solutions for integrated city management & use cases