Zamalek, Egypt, 29 March 2019—UN-Habitat and Egypt held a two-day conference on March 24 and 25 bringing together over 120 experts.

“In order to be smart, cities need to be sustainable and inclusive”. This is one of the key messages emerging during the conference organized by UN-Habitat E and co-organized with and the Egyptian Ministry of Housing, Utilities & Urban Communities throughout the Housing and Building Research Council (HBRC) - Urban Training and Studies Institute - and under the auspices of the Prime Minister.

Egypt is embarking on a slate of ambitious and new, fourth-generation ‘smart’ cities on the cusp of the nation’s Sustainable Development Strategy 2030. This includes exploring drafting of a Smart Cities Code in order to shape the development of smart cities that integrates the SDS 2030, implementation of the NUA and UN-Habitat Strategic Plan 20/25 priority areas. It is hoped that this could lead to smart city developments in a way that meets sustainable development for all cities, old as well as new.

Those attending Egypt’s national-level experts, with senior international-level expertise from UN-Habitat’s Headquarters providing stimulating discussions on defining a smart city, the structure and building blocks of smart city and methods to govern localizing sustainable development at the city level. The event contained two days of intensive and distinctive discussions with specialized tracks covering smart urban infrastructure, smart economy, smart energy, smart mobility and smart urban governance, and resulted in development of a White Paper that will be available for public consultation on UN-Habitat and partner websites.