{"id":1646,"date":"2016-09-07T15:59:04","date_gmt":"2016-09-07T14:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=1646"},"modified":"2016-10-26T15:14:47","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T14:14:47","slug":"smart-cities-challenges-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/09\/07\/smart-cities-challenges-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart Cities\u2019 Challenges in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Caught in the midst of traffic at Lagos after attending a discussion about the <strong>electricity challenges in Nigeria<\/strong>, I told my driver about <strong>how smart cities would improve people\u2019s lives<\/strong>. He gave me a skeptical look, which I interpreted as \u201cwill I ever see this come true\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1649\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1649\" style=\"width: 744px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1649\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/09\/Hope-City-next-to-Accra-Ghana.jpg\" alt=\"Picture of Hope City, next to Accra, Ghana.\" width=\"744\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/09\/Hope-City-next-to-Accra-Ghana.jpg 744w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/09\/Hope-City-next-to-Accra-Ghana-300x172.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/09\/Hope-City-next-to-Accra-Ghana-500x287.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 744px) 100vw, 744px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1649\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hope City, next to Accra, Ghana<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I read recently an article about strategies for <strong>smart cities in Africa<\/strong>\u00a0(Slavova, Mira &amp; Ekene Okwechime. 2016. \u201cAfrican smart cities strategies for Agenda 2063\u201d <em>Africa Journal of Management<\/em>, 2: 210-229.)<\/p>\n<p>I thought of sharing with you some of their insights. But let me first show some figures. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldatlas.com\/citypops.htm\" target=\"_blank\">World Atlas<\/a> lists the <strong>populations of 150 largest cities<\/strong> in the world. Out of these, <strong>15 are located in sub-Saharan Africa<\/strong> (figures in million people):<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/09\/BIGGEST-CITIES-IN-AFRICA-_-SMART-CITIES.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1647\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/09\/BIGGEST-CITIES-IN-AFRICA-_-SMART-CITIES.jpg\" alt=\"BIGGEST CITIES IN AFRICA-SMART CITIES\" width=\"500\" height=\"485\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/09\/BIGGEST-CITIES-IN-AFRICA-_-SMART-CITIES.jpg 704w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/09\/BIGGEST-CITIES-IN-AFRICA-_-SMART-CITIES-300x291.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/09\/BIGGEST-CITIES-IN-AFRICA-_-SMART-CITIES-500x485.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not difficult to figure out the <strong>main challenges African cities face<\/strong>. If you\u2019ve lived there, you can name them in a few seconds:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Inadequate physical infrastructures<\/li>\n<li>Too widespread populations<\/li>\n<li>Unemployment<\/li>\n<li>Slums<\/li>\n<li>Poor quality social services<\/li>\n<li>Vulnerability to disasters and climate change&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The good news is that <strong>there are ways to overcome these challenges<\/strong>. For instance, some of the largest cities\u2019 <strong>current infrastructures<\/strong> are not well suited to meet the needs of citizens. But those infrastructures <strong>could be transformed to have a new functionality<\/strong>. An example: Lagos has two stadiums next to each other, one of which is underutilized. Couldn\u2019t this one be transformed into a transport terminal?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Small cities have the opportunity to become smart as they grow<\/strong> &#8212; not to say about satellite cities that are being built next to some of the largest ones. Hope City in Ghana is one such satellite city next to Accra. Someone described it to me as a \u201cnew city within the city.\u201d This is a promising route: one more aspect in which Africa can leapfrog.<\/p>\n<p>However, <strong>technology <em>per se<\/em> doesn\u2019t make a city smart<\/strong>. I liked this sentence in particular: <strong>\u201cThe centrality of \u2018smart citizens\u2019, rather than \u2018smart cities\u2019, can be easily overlooked.\u201d<\/strong> A high-tech city may not be that smart if citizens don\u2019t behave smartly. At the same time, <strong>an improvement in living conditions will help promote smart behaviors<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Related posts<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/06\/01\/african-cities-in-motion\/\">African Cities in Motion<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2014\/12\/17\/smart-citizens-for-smart-cities-and-countries\/\" target=\"_blank\">Smart Citizens for Smart Cities and Countries<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/10\/14\/urban-transport\/\" target=\"_blank\">Urban Transport<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/05\/20\/clean-robot-cops-of-kinshasa\/\">Clean Robot Cops of Kishasa<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/07\/15\/africa-powering-ahead\/\">Africa Powering Ahead<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Caught in the midst of traffic at Lagos after attending a discussion about the electricity challenges in Nigeria, I told my driver about how smart cities would improve people\u2019s lives. He gave me a skeptical look, which I interpreted as \u201cwill I ever see this come true\u2026?\u201d I read recently an article about strategies for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99314,492],"tags":[100260,97601,93579,89737,93300,57887,1346,100259],"class_list":["post-1646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-and-institutional-context","category-development","tag-accra","tag-big-cities-in-africa","tag-cities-in-motion","tag-development","tag-lagos","tag-smart-cities","tag-technology","tag-world-atlas","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1646"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1652,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646\/revisions\/1652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}