City governments have a key role in planning, delivering, and ensuring the uptake of smart technologies. The key to success is to define this role adequately.

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If we assume that the responsibility of visioning, financing, procuring and managing smart city projects lies solely on the shoulders of cities, then implementing smart city ambitions may seem like a daunting task. In a time of global uncertainty, public officers indeed rarely have the resources and expertise to bear the sole burden of delivery. The good news is that such a delivery model is rarely the only option available.

A successful smart city project will equally benefit technology solutions providers, investors, local businesses and community stakeholders. Provided the vested interests of those parties can align (so that supply matches demand at the correct price), then those actors all have an incentive to drive projects forward.

Because of a lack of market dialogue in the smart city solution markets, those private and public interests rarely align spontaneously. The role of cities is therefore to understand the reasons behind market failure and use the wide array of regulatory, financing and procurement tools at their disposal to address it and encourage market activity.

The current COVID-19 crisis illustrates why cities should avoid relying on a single delivery model to support all of their smart city ambitions. In times of great market disruption/uncertainty it is helpful to have a mix of funding, procurement and delivery strategies to:

• spread the risk and costs of disruption between different actors, and
• avoid dependency on single providers/funders who might reconsider their commitment during disruptive periods.

This webinar will go through four different, but complementary, roles that cities can play to support the adoption of smart city solutions within their boundaries, highlighting their associated funding models and how they each address various market failures. These models include:

1. Cities as regulators
   With cases from Copenhagen (DK) and Cincinnati (US) - delivering smart redevelopment through use of regulation - Dr. Luise Noring, City Facilitators
2. Cities as facilitators With a case from Barcelona (ES) - delivering smart Last-mile-delivery through public facilitation - Gonzalo Cabezas, Barcelona CIty Council
3. Cities as buyers (direct procurers)
   Case tbf.
4. Cities as partners (public-private partnerships)
   With a case from Rotterdam (NL) - delivering the digital city with in partnership with stakeholders - Roland van der Heijden, The Municipality of Rotterdam

The delivery models described in the webinar should be seen as complementary – they all have their place as part of a sustainable smart city delivery strategy, both now and in the future.

The webinar will be moderated by Philipp Tepper from ICLEI Europe and Georg Houben of the European Commission. The discussion will be supported by real life examples from different panelists, who will share their experiences of applying each delivery model.

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This webinar is organised by Electronics Watch:

The Corona virus has led to a crisis of unprecedented magnitude. The electronics industry with its global supply chains is strongly affected. The situation is still dynamic with countries like China already experiencing the second wave of the crisis – economic slowdown, factory closures and unemployment – while other regions are still under lockdown.

This webinar takes you behind the headlines of the Corona crisis to shine a spotlight on the impact on workers in different parts of the electronics supply chain, from miners and mining communities in Latin America to manufacturing workers across Asia. We will take you from the struggles of workers to the challenges public buyers face in Europe and how they are trying to engage their ICT supply chains to protect workers’ rights and safety.

The webinar features four experts on these topics:

Charlotte Christiaens, General Coordinator, CATAPA, Belgium
Kim Thi Thu Ha, Managing Director, Center for Development and Integration, Vietnam
Mike Kilner, Senior Category Manager, London Universities Purchasing Consortium, UK
Omana George, Monitoring Coordinator, Electronics Watch, Hong Kong

This webinar is for:

• Public buyers who want to understand the situation in their ICT supply chains better and what they can do to protect workers’ rights and safety.
• Policy makers who want to understand the situation in global ICT supply chains, practical actions taken by public buyers and why economic and public health policy must be based on global solidarity.
• Civil society who want to understand the situation in global ICT supply chains and how the situation of local labour rights organisations is developing.
• General public who want to understand the situation in global ICT supply chains.

Please register for the webinar here.