Despite the many digital challenges facing countries, the African continent is buoyed by a growing population that is increasingly young, urbanized, educated, and connected.
These factors are driving governments to innovate and integrate the concept of "Smart Cities" into their strategies to support the continent's development in step with the digital revolution. "Smart cities" are designed and conceived to promote urbanization and sustainable development in African cities, while reducing the digital divide, which remains a reality.
In this context, the French Development Agency (AFD) has chosen to support the digital transition of 12 African cities to become new sustainable and inclusive "smart cities."
Since October 2019, AFD has been piloting the African Smart Towns Network project to enable the network of selected cities to take up the digital challenge on a given theme. Following a call for applications, the cities of Algiers, Bamako (Mali), Benguérir (Morocco), Bizerte (Tunisia), Kampala (Uganda), Kigali (Rwanda), Kumasi (Ghana), Lagos (Nigeria), Maputo-Matola (Mozambique), Niamey (Niger), Nouakchott (Mauritania), and Sèmè-Kpodji (Benin) were selected to take part in the project.
Nearly €3 million in funding from AFD will be devoted to supporting municipalities through the various phases of the digital transition project. Finally, another AFD budget will be allocated to organizing training sessions with international experts and events to promote exchanges between the various cities and project stakeholders.
"Some cities are already well advanced in their digital transition, while others are just beginning to realize the challenge this represents. But that is the whole point of the approach: for the former to share their expertise with the latter, while benefiting from the solutions that will emerge from the collective," says Simina Lazar, coordinator of the ASTON network.