Brochure, Uraía Platform

Uraía Platform – Citizenship, Ciudadanía, Citoyenneté

Uraía (Swahili word for Citizenship)

Ciudadanía, Ciudadanía f. Cualidad y derecho de ciudadano. Real Academia de la Lengua Española.

Citoyenneté, Situation positive créée par la pleine reconnaissance aux personnes de leur statut de citoyen. Le citoyen dispose, dans une communauté politique donnée, de tous ses droits civils et politiques. Dictionnaire Larousse.

Citizenship, The qualities that a person is expected to have as a responsible member of a community. Merriam-Webster dictionary

The Uraía Platform responds to three facts happening in the world today:

I. The recognition of local governments as key actors for sustainable development

They have the proximity, scale and legitimacy of being directly elected by the citizens; becoming the first gate for people´s participation in public affairs and first respondents to their need for basic services. The urbanization process is increasing pressure on cities and their governing institutions. To better serve their citizens, local government require financial sustainability and access to information to make informed decisions on the cost and accessibility of present and future basic services. Due to the political difficulties of fiscal decentralization, municipalities need to focus in the generation of endogenous resources and tackling informality while protecting the urban poor.

II. The call for increased transparency and accountability from citizens

Moving out of the informal economy towards local taxation is conditioned by stronger accountability and transparency of local leaders and local administration. People need to believe that the municipality will use the revenue in a transparent way and that collected taxes will have a direct and visible impact in their own neighbour. They will also be more inclined to pay for formal service provision if the cost is cheaper and services safer than informal provision. Smart technologies can be instrumental to this process by shortening implementation, geo-localizing expenditure, giving access to costs, and fighting corruption through open data policies.

III. The impact of SMART technologies in public management The explosion of technologies is introducing new challenges and opportunities for local governments to deliver on their mandate. Applications via mobile phones, sensors or smart cards are a chance to develop connected inclusive and more efficient territories for municipalities, economic stakeholders and citizens. Mobile internet access has become increasingly cheap and accessible worldwide. In some developing cities, the role of smartphones has become crucial beyond expectation: citizens can now obtain vital information, access banking services without having a formal residence address and they are also able to become visible and able to participate in public life. People are more prone to invest in mobile phone credit that in any other basic good.

In this sense, smartphones are becoming instrumental to achieve active citizenship

Uraía Platform 1.0

Uraía Platform – Citizenship, Ciudadanía, Citoyenneté – November 2014

The use of Apps is changing the day-to-day lives of people in both industrialized and developing countries; they can also be a source of innovation for public management and local transformation. There is an opportunity to bridge the gap between local governments and technology providers and there is a need to structure existing knowledge so that cities can learn from each other´s and inform policy. OBJECTIVE: To support local governments in the adaptation to the new opportunities offered

by SMART technologies

Expected results Ways and means

Increased sustainability at local level through the sustainability of municipal finance

Expansion of local government resource base

Tackling informality of jobs, basic services and economy in the city

Reducing cost of services, energy consumption and environmental impact

Improved transparency and cost-effectiveness in urban services provision

Participation of local stakeholders in local budgets

Public supervision over public expenditure

Strengthened interaction between local governments and their local stakeholders

Facilitating access to citizenship creating accessible channels of communication and participation

Bridging the communication gap between cities and company providers

Cooperation between cities and with technology providers

Support to local governments in making the best choice amongst the existing products in the market

Creation of local capacities on procurement and contracts of new technologies

Marketplace for institutions willing to find operational solutions

Innovation in public management

Application of new technologies to the future management of services and infrastructures

Identification of enabling legislation and normative frameworks at local and national level

The Uraía Platform wants to contribute to the innovation of public management, proving

better opportunities for active citizenship

Uraía Platform 1.0


SERVICES provided to the Platform members

1. Access to a systematized collection of best practices and existing solutions

The platform will support the transfer of knowledge and experiences from cities that have already implemented smart projects to cities and companies asking for solutions and support. This online repository will contain the following information and opportunities:

Collection of experiences in the use of existing tools to improve municipal finances in different regions of the world.

Examples of regulation, by-laws and legislative framework enabling the use of smart technologies in municipal management.

Guidelines for open data policies applied to local government. Procurement guidelines for city managers, able to inform the local contract process and

improve the negotiation skills for both municipalities and the private sector. Contracts and samples, including a list of prices that different local governments in the world

are paying for SMART technologies services and devices. Repository of existing open software. List of contacts of public administrations and private firms involved in SMART technologies

for municipal management.

2. Learning and capacity building:

Uraía will provide capacity-building opportunities based on the needs and requests by its members. Areas of training will initially focus on procurement, contract negotiation, implementation of open-data strategies and regulatory frameworks, as requested by the participants to the Santander Marketplace. Training activities will be opened to private sector, national governments, local governments and their associations. Participation will be free for the members and a certain number of places will be available to cover travel and accommodation from developing countries. Members are encouraged to propose hosting specific training and knowledge-exchange opportunities.

Upcoming activity Public procurement for SMART technologies: cost-efficiency, transparency and the citizen. Oslo, Norway, January 2015.

3. Development and experimentation of municipal finance pilot apps The platform will seek the development of pilot apps to be implemented by municipalities with the final goal to increase their local revenue, thus being able to guarantee continuity of urban services and citizen equal access. A first proposal includes three different typologies of projects: Apps focusing in the transformation of informal economy activities into municipal revenue: the apps will seek the empowerment of the local government as providers of basic services. The possibility of geo-localizing sources of revenue allows the possibility of reverting part of the generated taxes to the tax-payers in a concrete space of the city, giving immediate visibility and showcasing quick-wins. The analysis of the data collected will constitute the basis for the city leader and its administration to communicate on the use of taxes and to receive feedbacks from service-users/tax-payers. The municipality will collect comments, analyse them and refine policies accordingly in order to improve accountability and service provision. The results can be extremely beneficial to create trust in the role of local government, and to become a powerful instrument to develop public policy.

Uraía Platform 1.0


Apps focusing on municipal infrastructure management: the implementation of SMART municipal management can be also particularly valuable for territorial governance and planning. For example, in the construction of a new city, or a new part of the city, the plan for new infrastructures can already be designed taking into account the management advantages of SMART apps, as it is the case of sensors to save future cost of maintenance and energy consumption. This will facilitate cost-recovery during use and guarantying the future sustainability of the investment. Infrastructures that are planned and built today will most probably have different ways of being maintained, used and managed. Possibilities for energy savings are huge and implementation is increasingly cheaper. Mayors and public administrators need access to updated information to be able to make decisions that will affect future costs and servicing of the investments of today.

Apps focusing on municipal transparency: the growing number of connected citizens is introducing new challenges and opportunities for local governments to deliver on their mandate. Smart technologies are really changing the modus operandi of public administrations. New products and technologies are being introduced to the market almost every day. It becomes increasingly difficult for cities to decide what are the most suitable strategies to be implemented in their own contexts. For municipalities in the developing world, the access to smart technologies can have huge benefits as, in a way, everything is still to be done and, if planned ahead, can make cities more environmentally friendly, cheaper to maintain and more accessible and transparent to their citizens.

Upcoming activity “Smart Markets” Hackathon, Abidjan, Ivory Coast, February 2015. With the occasion of the National meeting of Mayors and in partnership with OrangeLabs Emerginov. The activity will launch a competition for the design of an application to run the city markets, including issues such transport and traffic access, cleaning and waste removal, comparative prices and safety of the food sold in the market. A possibility to implement a participatory budget of the collected taxes by the owners of the shops is also being considered. The hackathon will involve youth groups and existing ecosystems of innovation

MEMBERSHIP The platform will start-up with a selected number of cities, giving priority to the cities attending the Marketplace: SMART technologies for municipal sustainability that took place in Santander (Spain) in June 2014. The group of participants will progressively expand, scaling-up to be able to provide adequate services to all of its members. National networks of Smart Cities will be given priority for subscribing to the Platform, given their effect of multiplication as well as filtering of request of information. The Spanish Network of Spanish cities and the Italian Observatory of Smart Cities are two examples that have already expressed interest in participating to the Platform.

The Platform is opened for members to become involved in the management of activities and support to the members either financially o through in-kind contributions as human resources, sponsorship of training activities and systematization of best practices. Participation in the URAIA Platform will be free during the launching phase (2014 – 2015), cities and companies wishing to participate during this phase can become members by sending their interest to the Platform Secretariat.

[email protected]

Uraía Platform 1.0


PARTICIPANT INSTITUTIONS

AFRICA LOCAL GOVERNMENT NETWORKS

Dakar Abidjan Citynet

Johannesburg Dar es Salam UCLG Committee on Connected and knowledge-

based cities

Addis Abeba Nouakchott Spanish Network of Smart Cities - RECI

ASIA PACIFIC Italian Observatory for Smart Cities – ANCI

Makati

All India Institute for Local Self-Government

EUROPE CENTRAL GOVERNMENTS

Santander Valencia India (*)

Turin Ille-de-France France (*)

Bruxelles Capital Barcelona

Metropolitan Area

THE AMERICAS PARTNERS

Belo Horizonte Porto Alegre Transparency International

Guarulhos Moron Orange Labs

Bogota Medellin Telefonica Industrial IoT

Acapulco Mexico DF University of Cantabria, Spain

Caracas Montevideo Instituto Mario Boella, Italy

Acapulco Cartago(*) SAP Urban Matters (*)

Santiago de Chile

Metropolitan Area

Montego Bay(*) Veolia (*)

Montreal

MENA (*) TO BE CONFIRMED

Marrakesh Urban Community

Rabat

Tunis Casablanca

Istanbul Nilufer

Bitlis Mashhad

Uraía Platform 1.0


Governance structure

Uraía will be implemented as a project within the actual structure of the FMDV and jointly managed with UN-Habitat Local Governments and Decentralization Unit.

FMDV – Global Fund for the Development of Cities FMDV (Global Fund for Cities Development) was initiated in October 2010 by Metropolis and UCLG in order to become the international organization that gathers local authorities (cities and provinces/federated states) and their networks on the economic and funding solutions for a sustainable urban development. FMDV supports local authorities in empowering their local economic dynamics and in accessing the necessary financial resource, to finance their urban development strategies through technical expertise and financial engineering on their projects. The network promotes a holistic approach on urban economy and urban development funding, both in terms of their traditional tools (bank loan, bond emission, local taxation optimization, public-private or public-public partnerships) and in their endogenous variation (local socio-economic revitalization, urban productivity and attractiveness, responsible green economy, local resources valorisation and mobilization, and social and solidarity economy. Based in Paris, FMDV has Regional offices for Africa based in Rabat, for Latin America based in Mexico City, for Middle East and West Asia based in Mashhad in Iran, and three national representations in Istanbul for Turkey, Brasilia for Brazil and Washington DC for the US. More info on www.fmdv.net UN-HABITAT, United Nations Human Settlements Program The Local Government and Decentralization Unit sits at the Urban Land, Legislation and Governance Branch of UN-Habitat. The core role of the unit is to stresses the role of local government as a key actor of development, whose relevance has been reinforced by the Rio+20 Declaration "The World we want". The unit supports local governments and their associations, working closely with both central and territorial governments to establish mechanisms of dialogue, to exchange best practices and to support projects for the empowerment of local and regional governments through a fair distribution of responsibilities and resources. The Unit’s role is to develop normative and operational frameworks, to share experiences and disseminate best practices on local governance, democracy and access to basic services. Focusing on local governments’ needs, the Unit addresses local management challenges through the development of tailored tools, instruments and methodologies to reinforce the capacities of local government. The Unit also promotes city-to-city cooperation and advocates for the essential role of local governments on a global level. www.unhabitat.org

Documents

Brochure, Uraía Platform