Making Nigerian cities smart for smarter growth

Asmart city can be defined as an urban development vision to integrate multiple Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions in a secure fashion to manage a city’s assets. The goal is to improve quality of life of residents using technology. 

It is therefore a welcome development to read of the plan of the federal government through an initiative facilitated by National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to engage in the process of digital governance and smart city. According to NITDA, the initiative would involve using smart and scalable solutions to address a host of challenges including government services, traffic management, healthcare, education, disaster response and the environment amongst others.  In a country that is beset with leakages and enormous sharp practices in the conduct of government services, e-government, an element of digital governance introduces transparency and accountability. This is a timely intervention in city administration.

According to a report by McKinsey Global Institute, cities are the lifeblood of the global economy and increasingly they determine the wealth of nations. Successful cities are those that are flexible and adapt quickly to changing conditions. This is what the country needs to be globally competitive. Global cities manifest an information economy with high levels of expertise and specialization, with connectivity in terms of its global knowledge inflows and outflows. Global cities are smart cities, bubbling with brains and creativity!

IBM Global Business Services in its study on smart cities noted that the city is a container of skills, aptitude, knowledge and innovation. It attracts the best talents available in the country that should be retained for the benefit of the country otherwise they relocate to other geographies or atrophied.  Still on the study by IBM Global Institute, it reported that in this present century, growth, economic value and competitive differentiation of cities will increasingly be derived from people and their knowledge as well as the capacity of the economy to create and absorb innovation. To achieve this purpose, a city would need to better apply advanced information technology, analytics and systems thinking to develop a more citizen-centric approach to services.  A growing city cannot expect to import wholesale the highly skilled and knowledgeable workers it needs. The city itself must cultivate smarter citizenry, together with an academic and business population capable of absorbing and commercializing innovation.

The Nigerian case is a pity. Erratic power supply, snarling traffic and insecure environment persist.

Do you want to achieve more? Mastercard did a study in 2008 and reported that the most productive cities in the world are in the top 50 globally connected cities. In terms of the global financial centres, 30 out of the 37 global financial centres are among the world’s 50 most productive cities. By the same token, smart cities attract globally competitive Multinationals because they are on the look-out for best talents and knowledge workers therefore attracted to cities with abundance of highly skilled human capital.

IBM Global Services points to the following for a city that wishes to attract, create, enable and retain talented workers and innovative businesses viz:

a.     Reduce congestion in the transport system

b.     Improve emergency response and reduce crime

c.     Streamline government services

d.     Improve access to patient-centric healthcare services

These are achievable in a smart city environment where digital governance holds sway. According to Accenture, digital is high on the agenda of governments, enabling them to radically transform complex bureaucracies to become more agile, citizen-centric, efficient and innovative.

A recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Singapore as 1st in digital maturity level in the world. South Korea was ranked 4th in the survey. With a population of 49.3 million people and GDP per capita of US$30,801, South Korea government’s vision is to create an advanced government that promotes active citizen participation anytime, anywhere through the integration of smart devices and government services.  In the PriceWaterHouseCoopers (PwC) Cities of Opportunity report, 2015, Seoul, its capital was ranked 1st in technology readiness.

Cities determine the wealth of nations. A writer once remarked that if you think ‘country’ when exploring new markets, think again. There are evidences that global markets are increasingly dominated by networks of global cities…and the increasing relative dominance of these cities appears to be associated with the density of knowledge and information technology assets in the city, wrote another. As a matter of fact, there is a close correspondence between the level of global connectivity of a city and its GDP per capita. According to Oxford Economics in its report on Future Trends and Market Opportunities in the World’s Largest 750 Cities, given projected growth rates, it would take Lagos 150 years to catch up with New York.

This is an agenda that the nation should take seriously. In times like this, with weakening oil revenues, Information and Communication Technology provides an alternative; and transparency, an essential ingredient in government service delivery.  As reiterated by the acting Director General of NITDA, Vincent Olatunji, there are many benefits of running a smart city, achievable through proper e-government. States should be encouraged to key into the agenda. It would usher a new dawn!

Article contributed by Ndudi Osakwe, Consultant, IBG Nigeria and PhD student, Economic Geography, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.

Ndudi Osakwe