The Civil Engineering Contractor May 2018 | Page 34

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Smart connections
By Eckart Zollner
As mass urbanisation continues across Africa, putting in place
the fundamental infrastructure needed to build smart cities has
never been more important.
As infrastructure is rolled out, citizens connect, and services go live, cities will become smarter.
S
mart cities are emerging in Zambia,
Ghana, Mauritius, and Kenya. For
all of them, the first hurdle is
installing the ICT infrastructure, but
the capabilities required to kick-start
smart-city services and efficiencies reach
beyond ICT. Smart cities don’t just deliver
cost savings and efficiencies; creating a
sustainable enabling environment can
impact economic potential and growth.
In Africa, a dearth of infrastructure
provides a greenfield opportunity to get
it right first time. However, strategic
planning will be key to success.
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ICT may be the core upon which smart
cities are built, but getting buy-in from
stakeholders to deliver smart services
means building relationships, putting in
place processes and integrating systems,
and implementing the right controls,
security, and management systems.
This requires an ICT partner with
more than just technology skills. A
broad knowledge and experience of
industry sectors (from utilities to public
sector service delivery, manufacturing
value chains, industrial operations, and
corporate processes) will be essential to
co-ordinate, synchronise, and integrate
systems and technologies as they converge
within a single intelligent city hub.
UN studies and other research offer
alarming predictions: by 2035, the
majority of Africa’s people (over 50%)
will be urbanised, more than doubling
current urban populations in some
countries. By 2030, six of the world’s
41 megacities will be in Africa. By
2050, Africa’s slum population will have
tripled. Governments will be highly
pressured to keep pace with urban
development.