Ict As Driver For Urban Prosperity

As noted, the General Assembly has strongly urged United Nations agencies to promote the use of ICTs as a catalyst for the achievement of internationally agreed development goals, including the MDGs. It is also looking increasingly likely that ICTs will be included in some way in the new Post-2015 development goals as outlined in the High Level Panel's Report. There is a need to produce evidence-based information about the role of ICTs in sustainable urban development. Studying the role of ICTs as a driver for urban prosperity presents a big opportunity to do so by using an established and recognized UN-Habitat methodology, The City Prosperity Index. The project will contribute towards the two focus areas of UN-Habitat's Strategic Plan of creating better integrated and connected cities that foster equitable sustainable urban development and disseminating knowledge of sustainable urbanization issues at international, national and local levels in order to improve formulation and implementation of evidence based policies and programmes and to improve public awareness of the benefits of and conditions necessary for sustainable urbanization.  As discussed, the project will reposition communication technologies in the ‘hub' of the wheel of urban prosperity. This means that ICT is integrated into the urban planning and visioning of the city, as well as in the legal, regulatory and institutional frameworks that are instruments of prosperity and well-being.  Through practical ICT and urban planning pilot projects, prototype development and concept visualizations – for example transport apps, tools for crowdsourcing urban planning data or urban data analytics dashboards – combined with traditional research, the study will propose a methodology for measuring the impact that ICT can have on the different dimensions of prosperity. Based on these results, the study will assess the overall contribution of ICT to sustainable urban development and urban prosperity and propose a set of actions needed to increase prosperity levels in cities. These recommendations will be integrated to an on-going international process such as the City Prosperity Initiative, the third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), the Post 2015 Development Agenda, in such a way that decision makers can design appropriate policies and implement tools around the different roles of ICT.  In this manner, ICT can have both a technical function enhancing connectivity and a policy function acting as a “driver of urban prosperity”. Ericsson, the telecommunications company, has joined UN-Habitat in responding to the above mandate by agreeing to financially support the ICTs as Driver for Urban Prosperity project through an Agreement of Cooperation signed in April 2014. The project will be implemented in two parts:1.    A three-year operational applied research project, exploring concrete examples of how ICTs can function as a driver of urban prosperity and support urban planning, building on city projects to create tangible visualizations and proof of concepts. The results will be highlighted through a joint communications and advocacy plan and presence at global events to influence Habitat III and other global processes. The projects will explore areas such as the use of sensors and 5G networks in urban settings, data analytics, ICT assessments, mobility analytics and using ICTs to crowdsource urban planning data. This project will be implemented by UN-Habitat's External Relations Division with support from Ericsson, relevant UN-Habitat branches and other partners. 2.    A one-year special ICT and urban prosperity research study. The aim is to objectively evaluate, using statistical data and spatial analysis, the role of ICT in promoting prosperity by assessing the impact of ICT on the six dimensions of prosperity – equity, sustainability, infrastructure, productivity, quality of life and governance. The study will define a set of policy actions needed to increase prosperity levels in cities. A report will be launched in 2015 and can thus influence the Habitat III conference and the Post 2015 Development Agenda, in such a way that decision makers can design appropriate policies and implement tools based on the outcomes of the study. This project will be implemented by UN-Habitat's Research and Capacity Development Branch with support from Ericsson and the External Relations Division of UN-Habitat. The ICT field is broad and relates to UN-Habitat's in many areas, including youth, mobility, urban planning, water and sanitation, slum upgrading and governance. Discussions will therefore continue with thematic branches about the best ways for them to be involved in this work.