City of Riyadh receives U4SSC certificate of merit for smart cities
The Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC) received the Certificate of Satisfactory Implementation of the U4SSC KPIs for Smart Sustainable Cities awarded to the City of Riyadh by the United Nations’ United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiative during the 9th ITU Green Standards Week held in Valencia, Spain.
The certificate recognizes Riyadh as one of the world’s leading cities that actively contribute to the development of the global Smart Sustainable City Index and achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
In addition to Riyadh, Valencia (Spain), Alesund (Norway), Moscow (Russia) and Dubai (United Arab Emirates) were recognized with the certificate out of over 100 cities worldwide already implementing these KPIs. The certificate was awarded upon the recommendation of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), and the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-HABITAT). Eng. Abdulrahman bin Abdullah Al-Sultan, head of the RCRC’s Research and Studies Department, received the award.
The U4SSC approved an action plan until 2025, with the participation of the five cities, focusing on the following key themes:
- Develop the Smart Sustainable Cities index (Expected application date: late 2019).
- Standards for smart cities, best practices for data collection, guidelines for monitoring progress by tracking indicators over time (Expected publication date: mid 2020).
- Smart tools for monitoring UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- Twin City Program.
- Innovative solutions for the global city.
It is worth mentioning that the U4SSC serves as a global platform to advocate for public policy and encourage the use of ICTs to facilitate and ease the transition to smart sustainable cities.