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Urban Services
SMART CITIES
A digital response to rapid urbanisation How can digital technology, and in particular mobile telecommunications, help to deliver energy and water and improve waste collection? That’s what the GSMA Innovation Fund for Digital Urban Services aims to find out, as the GSMA’s head of sub-Saharan Africa, Angela Wamola, explains.
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HE GSMA INNOVATION Fund for Digital Urban Services aims to scale digital solutions that provide essential urban services to underserved populations from low and middle-income countries in Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia. We asked the GSMA’s head of sub-Saharan Africa, Angela Wamola, to explain its aims and how the mobile ecosystem can support the improvement of essential urban services.
Communications Africa (CAF): What inspired the development of this fund? Angela Wamola (AW), head of sub-Saharan Africa, GSMA: Cities in Africa and Asia are faced with the concurrent challenges of rapid urbanisation, climate change, and persistent inequality. As we highlighted in our report Digital Solutions for the Urban Poor*, these challenges make urban service provision particularly difficult for city governments and utility service providers. Inclusive utility services such as energy, water, sanitation, waste management and transport support urban resilience, which allows cities in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs) to better withstand challenges related to population growth, climate change, and inequality. With the support of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
(FCDO), this fund was set up with the objective of extracting insights from business models to inform the improvement of essential urban services delivery across four verticals: plastic and waste management; energy; water; and sanitation. The grants will be utilised to test digital innovations, enable scale and provide essential services to underserved populations across all four sectors.
CAF: Who is judging the applicants? What are they be looking for? AW: An independent panel of experts appraise proposals based on the submitted material as well as recommendations from the GSMA and the Fund Manager. Successful grants will be awarded to start-ups, SMEs or social enterprises that leverage digital technology, especially mobile, to deliver urban services with socioeconomic, commercial and environmental impact.
CAF: Why did you highlight plastic and waste management, water, energy and sanitation? AW: Two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050, with most urban growth concentrated in Africa and Asia. This poses challenges to basic service provision as city authorities and urban service providers struggle to meet the demands of rapidly growing
populations. Digital solutions can provide essential urban services to underserved populations in LMICs. As we stress in our report*, urban services such as plastics and waste management, energy, water, and sanitation are essential to well-being and the creation of more circular economies. While there has been a historic rise in mobile connectivity in LMICs, billions of people lack access to basic services. With rapidly expanding informal settlements across Africa and Asia, where 90 per cent of global urban growth from now until 2050 will be concentrated, water shortages, unsanitary conditions, unreliable power provision, and inadequate waste management could remain a defining reality for many. Providing basic urban services to rapidly expanding informal settlements poses unique challenges to municipalities and state-owned utilities. For instance, extending piped networks and sewer infrastructure to informal settlements faces a range of financial, technical and political barriers. The result is often highly disproportionate distribution of basic services between richer neighbourhoods and poorer informal settlements, with preference given to the socio-economic core. Experts warn that instead of benefiting from pathways to greater prosperity, many people living in informal settlements risk being locked into ‘poverty traps’ given that they often settle in areas deprived of public and private investment. Innovative solutions that can make cities work for low-income populations, provide sustainable urban services, and allow cities to become true engines of upward mobility need to be tested and scaled.
Photo: GSMA
CAF: Is it right to argue that mobile communications in particular can better and more quickly reach informal housing than fixed?
Could digital technology improve waste management in places like Cote d’Ivoire?
18 Communications Africa Issue 5 2021
AW: Digital solutions can unlock business models with the capacity of extending service provision to low-income urban populations. For example, prepaid smart meters in the water sector can make safe water sources more affordable to low-income populations who otherwise rely on variably priced, unsafe sources. There is also growing recognition that ‘downstream’ innovations in plastic supply chains will help ensure that global and domestic www.communicationsafrica.com
