Services of Uraia Platform

Uraía Platform – Citizenship, Ciudadanía, Citoyenneté

SERVICES

SERVICES provided to the members of Uraía

1.

Access to a systematized collection of best practices and existing solutions

2.

Learning and capacity building:

3.

Development and experimentation of municipal finance pilot apps

Uraía Platform 1.0 1. Access to a systematized collection of best practices and existing solutions The platform will support the transfer of knowledge and experiences from cities that have already implemented smart projects to cities and companies asking for solutions and support. This online repository will contain the following information and opportunities:  Collection of experiences in the use of existing tools to improve municipal finances in different regions of the world.  Examples of regulation, by-laws and legislative framework enabling the use of smart technologies in municipal management.  Guidelines for open data policies applied to local government.  Procurement guidelines for city managers, able to inform the local contract process and improve the negotiation skills for both municipalities and the private sector.  Contracts and samples, including a list of prices that different local governments in the world are paying for SMART technologies services and devices.  Repository of existing open software.  List of contacts of public administrations and private firms involved in SMART technologies for municipal management.

2. Learning and capacity building: Uraía will provide capacity-building opportunities based on the needs and requests by its members.

Areas of training will initially focus on procurement, contract negotiation, implementation of opendata strategies and regulatory frameworks, as requested by the participants to the Santander Marketplace. Training activities will be opened to private sector, national governments, local governments and their associations. Participation will be free for the members and a certain number of places will be available to cover travel and accommodation from developing countries. Members are encouraged to propose hosting specific training and knowledge-exchange opportunities.

Upcoming activity Public procurement for SMART technologies: cost-efficiency, transparency and the citizen. Oslo, Norway, January 2015.

3. Development and experimentation of municipal finance pilot apps The platform will seek the development of pilot apps to be implemented by municipalities with the final goal to increase their local revenue, thus being able to guarantee continuity of urban services and citizen equal access. A first proposal includes three different typologies of projects: Apps focusing in the transformation of informal economy activities into municipal revenue: the apps will seek the empowerment of the local government as providers of basic services. The possibility of geo-localizing sources of revenue allows the possibility of reverting part of the generated taxes to the tax-payers in a concrete space of the city, giving immediate visibility and showcasing quick-wins. The analysis of the data collected will constitute the basis for the city leader and its administration to communicate on the use of taxes and to receive feedbacks from serviceusers/tax-payers. The municipality will collect comments, analyse them and refine policies accordingly in order to improve accountability and service provision. The results can be extremely beneficial to create trust in the role of local government, and to become a powerful instrument to develop public policy.

Uraía Platform – Citizenship, Ciudadanía, Citoyenneté – September 2014

Uraía Platform 1.0

Apps focusing on municipal infrastructure management: the implementation of SMART municipal management can be also particularly valuable for territorial governance and planning. For example, in the construction of a new city, or a new part of the city, the plan for new infrastructures can already be designed taking into account the management advantages of SMART apps, as it is the case of sensors to save future cost of maintenance and energy consumption. This will facilitate cost-recovery during use and guarantying the future sustainability of the investment. Infrastructures that are planned and built today will most probably have different ways of being maintained, used and managed. Possibilities for energy savings are huge and implementation is increasingly cheaper.

Mayors and public administrators need access to updated information to be able to make decisions that will affect future costs and servicing of the investments of today.

Apps focusing on municipal transparency: the growing number of connected citizens is introducing new challenges and opportunities for local governments to deliver on their mandate.

Smart technologies are really changing the modus operandi of public administrations. New products and technologies are being introduced to the market almost every day. It becomes increasingly difficult for cities to decide what are the most suitable strategies to be implemented in their own contexts. For municipalities in the developing world, the access to smart technologies can have huge benefits as, in a way, everything is still to be done and, if planned ahead, can make cities more environmentally friendly, cheaper to maintain and more accessible and transparent to their citizens.

Upcoming activity “Smart Markets” Hackathon, Abidjan, Ivory Coast, February 2015.

With the occasion of the National meeting of Mayors and in partnership with OrangeLabs Emerginov. The activity will launch a competition for the design of an application to run the city markets, including issues such transport and traffic access, cleaning and waste removal, comparative prices and safety of the food sold in the market. A possibility to implement a participatory budget of the collected taxes by the owners of the shops is also being considered.

Uraía Platform – Citizenship, Ciudadanía, Citoyenneté – September 2014