Page 19 - Building digital public infrastructure for cities and communities

transparently governed, and also promote competition and inclusion, and adhere to principles
of data protection and privacy.
8. Grievance redress: Define accessible and transparent mechanisms for grievance redress, i.e.,
user touchpoints, processes, responsible entities, with a strong focus on actions for resolution.

9. Sustainability: Ensure sustainability through adequate financing and technological support
and enhancements to facilitate uninterrupted operations and seamless user-focused service
delivery.

10. Human rights: Adopt an approach that respects human rights at every stage of planning,
designing, building and operating.

11. Intellectual property protection: Provide adequate and effective protection and enforcement
of intellectual property rights for the rights-holders of technologies and other materials used
based on existing legal frameworks.

12. Sustainable development: Seek to develop and deploy these systems that contribute to the
implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and achievement of SDGs.

The above principles, being generic enough, can be applied seamlessly at the city/local community
level and ensures coherence with national/federal level implementations.

In contrast to digital private infrastructure, DPI are the foundational components that allow societies
to connect the remaining 2.7 billion people living on our planet, reach the bottom of the pyramid,
and cover for the market gaps. These remaining chronic developmental challenges usually arise
from the lack of the private sector appetite to invest in costly and economically unfeasible ICT
services and/or infrastructure provisioning projects, regardless of any incentives provided by the
policy makers. Obviously, the public funding or States’ sole interventions might not be enough
to cover the high cost of implementing a nationwide ICT infrastructure that can match local
communities’ demand.

The key question, though, is how to balance the private sector’s interests (e.g., revenue-driven,
customer’s data-centric acquisition focused) with the need to have an inclusive, open, sustainable,
fair, safe and secure digital future for the consumers (e.g., ensure privacy-by-design, privacy-by-
defaults, security-by-design, security-by-default, inclusivity)? And, to what extent does the current
state of play of DPI implementations suit city-level implementations? DPI has been advocated,
from its onset, as a national/federal level intervention, with little/limited focus on local-level, city-led
interventions. Are any complementary components needed to address the highly complex urban
environment of a smart city (i.e., the local context), given its ever-evolving ecosystem?

It is the purpose of this document to explore how DPI can be tailored to address the urban challenges
with grassroots stakeholders’ views, taking into consideration the wide and inclusive view of all
relevant smart sustainable cities’ stakeholders’ groups. In particular, the following framing questions

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