The UN’s 2010 State of African Cities report observes that “experience shows that across the world, urbanisation has been associated with improved human development, rising incomes and better living standards,” but warns that rapid urbanisation can be more of a burden than an opportunity for Africa. The report states that “Socio-economic conditions in African cities are now the most unequal in the world”. This situation threatens stability, affecting not only the continuity of cities as socio-political human ecosystems but also entire nations. In many cases, there is in fact economic stagnation and contraction, yet city populations continue to expand and there are increasing demands on resources and increasing expectations of economic opportunity. The ever-quickening process of rapid urbanisation poses major challenges to African cities. There is no time to waste (with infrastructure planning for cities)”. Local governments, traditionally the public sector’s weakest link in most countries, are the ground troops in refocusing to emphasise not just service delivery but the city’s leadership and enabling roles especially in tackling poverty, social exclusion, economic development, safety and the environment. The World Bank points out that managing such challenges in the face of local and global economic pressures has been difficult even in relatively well-run economies. Cities have always managed to adapt to new challenges. Now it is the time to address the cities’ new digital ecosystem, to respond to the challenges faced by cities. New technologies allow the improvement of the citizens’ quality of life and a more efficient delivery of services by public administrations, in an environmentally sustainable way. Besides this, there is an opportunity to go beyond. 

The digital revolution should allow the City to be at the heart of a new digital ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship, expanding and transforming the information of citizens and organizations. Cities must provide a digital infrastructure, a platform for digital services. This will allow not only the provision of today’s services, but the development of new services by any provider or entrepreneur supported on a common digital infrastructure of the city. The city may thus foster a flourishing, creative, innovative and entrepreneurial digital ecosystem that will lay foundations for future economic growth. The city platform must be set up to facilitate synergies and ensure interoperability with other services and systems such as transport, energy, health, social services, etc. We need to encourage innovation based on an open platform and open data, promoting the city as a living lab for the Internet of Things (IoT) and a technology hub.