Smart city and technology

Metropolis Board of Directors approves five new pilot projects

During the meeting held by the Metropolis Board of Directors, under the framework of the 2018 Metropolis Annual Meeting (Gauteng Province, 26-29 August, 2018), five new pilot projects were approved by the members of the Board.

With financial backing from Metropolis, the pilot projects will encourage capacity-building as well as technical exchanges of information and good practice in metropolitan management between members of the association under the framework of specific projects.

Following the call for pilot projects for the 2018-2020 cycle, the Secretariat General received 11 proposals, which were then submitted to the judging panel for assessment. The proposals received came from the following global regions: 7 from Latin America and the Caribbean, 2 from Asia, 1 from North America and 1 from Europe. An international judging panel selected five of these projects, which were then presented to the Board of Directors for approval.

The five pilot projects chosen for the 2018 – 2020 cycle are as follows:

  • “Cooperation between public innovation labs for increased citizen engagement and services' co-creation”. This project, put forward by the São Paulo prefecture in conjunction with the cities of Montreal and Montevideo, aims to encourage cooperation between public innovation labs across the three cities. The goal is to help them exchange their experiences with different innovative approaches and methodologies, in order to encourage the co-creation of integrated solutions for problems of public interest, while strengthening the dialogue between public authorities, the private sector and civil society.
  • “Metropolis in Movement” was submitted by Tijuana, with Quito, Medellín and Rosario acting as partners. The aim of this project is to identify the key elements that make the mobility management plans drafted by the cities involved in the process successful.
  • “Integrated water management to adapt to climate change in the metropolis” was presented by Bogotá, with collaboration from the Barcelona Metropolitan Area and Quito. This pilot project aims to produce a model for knowledge exchange and learning related to integrated water management, a key aspect for metropolitan areas to be able to build resilience and adapt to the effects of climate change. The project will analyse different means of monitoring and evaluating the measures employed to adapt to the effects of climate change.
  • “Participative democracy as part of new governance for sustainable and inclusive human development” was put forward by Córdoba, with Madrid, Barcelona and Montreal acting as partners. The central goal of this project is to encourage cities to share successful experiences with citizen participation, and to generate further knowledge so that it can be used further across the metropolis.
  • “Metropolitan dialogue: tactical urban planning and citizen participation” was presented by Medellín, with the collaboration of Mexico City and Barcelona. This project aims to build stronger technical cooperation in order to share the experiences and knowledge of metropolises in terms of urban planning, and especially with regard to public spaces, while encouraging citizen participation.

The first exchanges and capacity-building workshops will get under way in 2018, and they will be added to the six pilot projects that were approved last year and are currently being implemented. For more information on these projects, please get in touch with Guillaume Berret at the Metropolis Secretariat General.