SAP Africa has kicked off its SAP Urban Matters initiative at the Africa Urban Matters, Cities of the Future event 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.
This event is the African chapter of a series of international SAP events that have been hosted in Singapore, New York (US), Puebla (Mexico), London (UK), 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.
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,” says Nirvesh Sooful, CEO of 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.”
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 a number of themes:
* Helping improve urban liveability and create an inclusive, safer, greener and cleaner city;
* Transforming city governments so they are open, high performing, effective and efficient; and
* 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.
“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,” comments 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.”