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The future of sustainable development will be determined in part in urban areas. Despite various challenges, urbanization can be a driving force for sustainability when anchored on the principles of sustainable development. Rapid advancement of digital technologies and applications has created also enormous opportunities and expectations for cities to harness digital tools to advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Increasingly, digital technologies are integrated into the lives and livelihoods of people, often considered an essential part of the SMART city toolbox. Deploying digital technologies in urban areas has proven useful in addressing a myriad of issues. SMART cities promise to transform sustainable urban development. To strengthen capacities of national policymakers and local authorities responsible for digital transformation and building SMART cities, a capacity building webinar was held on 9 September 2021 from 8:00 to 10:30 am EDT via Zoom.
The webinar aimed to strengthen capacities of government decision-makers and local authorities responsible for digital transformation and building SMART cities in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It further aimed to strengthen the general knowledge and capacity of countries, especially the developing countries, and in particular the capacity of the LDCs, SIDS, LLDCs, and countries with economies in transition, to participate in, and benefit from, the growing opportunities of digitalization while mitigating the risks.
The webinar brought into virtual collaboration municipal government officials responsible for digital transformation, and experts and decision-makers from the private sector, civil society, academia in relevant digital fields, including digital government, digital economy, science and technology and innovation (STI), institutes and businesses with expertise in digital transformation of the public sector. The recommendations of the Webinar as well as the analytical assessments of SMART technologies will feed into the preparation of a curriculum and toolkits for future capacity building efforts.
Documents
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