Africa today
announced the kick-off of its SAP® Urban Matters initiative at the Africa Urban
Matters, Cities of the Future event being hosted in Cape Town. The event
focuses on how innovative technology can be leveraged to make cities and
municipalities more effective – and improve the lives of citizens.
Drawing
attendees from across Africa and Europe and with representatives from cities in
Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa and the United Kingdom, the event will
feature an opening address by Patricia de Lille, Mayor of the City of Cape
Town, a keynote address on ‘Connected Cities’ by Nirvesh Sooful, CEO at African
Ideas, and a presentation by Andre Stelzner, CIO, City of Cape Town. Stelzner
will be sharing his experience on what it takes to be an ‘integrated city.’ In
addition, participants from cities across Africa will contribute their
perspectives to help shape the discussion around the future of cities in
Africa.
This event
is the African chapter of a series of international SAP events that have been
hosted in Singapore, New York City (United States of America), Puebla (Mexico),
London (United Kingdom), Auckland (New Zealand), Berlin (Germany), Delhi
(India) and Bogota (Colombia). The events showcase best practices of cities
around the world, and provide an interactive forum to address local-specific
issues.
Glyn Evans,
Former Director of Birmingham’s Transformation Programme, will be presenting a
case study on City Transformation. He will not only discuss how ICT solutions
helped Birmingham build a better city, but also share the lessons learned while
new processes were being implemented. Also presenting at the event is is Jak
Koseff, Director of Social Assistance from the City of Johannesburg, who will
be talking about cities’ social responsibilities.
In 2010,
Africa’s urban population was approximately 36%, but this number is projected
to rapidly increase to 50% and 60% by 2030 and 2050, respectively. According to
the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), the proportion of South
Africans living in urban areas increased from 52% in 1990 to 62% in 2012. As
Africa is becoming increasingly urbanised with millions of people migrating to
all major hubs, there is clearly a pressing need for governments and
municipalities to efficiently deal with this enormous influx and all other
related issues.
“The need of
the hour is to rapidly accelerate the benefits of ICT-enabled change through
transformation of the public sector and the wider economy. In order to
flourish, African cities must equip themselves with the best possible technical
tools to directly tackle environmental and social challenges, underpinned by
proven budgeting and management processes,” said Nirvesh Sooful, CEO at African
Ideas. “Governments need to consider partnering with companies like SAP, giving
them access to best practices and innovative ways of solving the myriad of
complex problems that face cities today.”
SAP Urban
Matters
Having
worked with numerous city and urban governments across the world -- from
Brisbane to Boston, Berlin to Bogota, London to Singapore, Paris to Mumbai --
SAP has developed a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities
associated with urban development.
The SAP
Urban Matters initiative focuses on helping urban governments deliver the
citizen-centric services and efficiencies needed to be best-run cities. This
primarily involves three over-arching themes
1. Helping improve urban liveability and
create an inclusive, safer, greener and cleaner city.
2. Transforming city governments so they are
open, high performing, effective and efficient
3. Driving economic prosperity in cities,
through better management of city finances, improving tax collection, helping
small businesses to grow and making the city more attractive for investment,
skills development and innovation.
4. SAP takes a holistic approach to urban
sustainability, incorporating crucial pillars like governance, public security,
the environment as well as citizen engagement.
The SAP
Urban Matters solution portfolio offers a broad range of solutions for
improving transportation, governance and to make the city safer and more
secure. Other than the City of Cape Town, several other municipalities in South
Africa are already successfully running SAP solutions like SAP® ERP Human
Capital Management and SAP® Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Integration
for Utilities software.
“With the global focus on Africa, governments
across the continent are relying on innovative technology to help them prepare
for issues associated with rapid urbanisation,” commented Pfungwa Serima, CEO
SAP Africa. “We have been working with city, state and local governments in
Africa and many other cities across the world to transform and innovate since
the nineties, SAP® Urban Matters
intensifies our the importance of our urban focus and defines how we will
support best run cities in the future."
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