Africa’s cities need to be more affordable, connected and liveable
Technology will enable continent to cope with massive urbanisation
WITH Africa’s urban population set to double to about one billion by 2040, Africa’s cities need to be more affordable, connected and liveable. Experts shared their insights on what it will take to design and build “smart” and sustainable cities in Africa.
Economic Opportunities MEC Alan Winde said the concept of smart cities had the potential to address a range of challenges.
“In a smart city, you have access to realtime data on the traffic flow of any road in the city’s network, and this allows you to change the pace of the traffic light, or put other measures in place to ease congestion.”
“To become a smart city, we must first be a connected city. This is why we are investing R3bn in the rollout of broadband infrastructure across the province. This includes a campaign to bring more residents online through our wi-fi partnership with Neotel, and tech centres such as Barn Khayelitsha and the Interactive Community Access Network in Elsies River.”
According to a World Bank report, Africa’s urban population is 472 million. By 2025, 187 million people will be living in urban areas, with the population set to double over the next 25 years, reaching one billion by 2040.
The report said the continent needed cities that were more affordable, connected and liveable, and, in order to grow economically, Africa’s cities must be globally connected.
William Johnston, the regional director for structures at WSP Africa, a professional services firm, said governments and city planners across the continent needed a dual strategy and focus.
“To succeed in their planning and development efforts, there needs to be a split strategy and focus. The first focus will be on securing much-needed infrastructure and services to meet growing demand in the medium term. Concurrent to this, significant focus also needs to be placed on future planned upgrades and/or new builds that will be smart, sustainable and thereby future-proof in the long term.”
Johnston said an integrated design had to be considered, from providing basic services to intelligent systems that use internet access to leverage technology such as cloud computing, mobility, the Internet of Things (IoT), “big data” and automation.
Riaan Graham, the sales director for Ruckus sub-Saharan Africa, a broadband services provider, said the growth of connected devices and their potential impact increased awareness of the benefits that a smart city could offer.
“There is significant movement towards embracing this new technology-rich eco-system. However, this extends to beyond just dropping in technology and hoping for the best.
“A truly smart city is one that is focused on integrating technology to interconnect different governmental departments to create a single infrastructure that provides better service delivery, improved municipal services, infrastructure enhancements and utilises real-time monitoring systems for the betterment of all citizens, to name just a few things.
“This interconnectedness should exist seamlessly across at least the top six components to designing a smart city, including smart energy, smart transport, smart data, smart infrastructure, smart mobility and smart IoT.”