Finding Birnin Zana: In Pursuit Of An African Smart City

The rising complexities of cities necessitate more efficient and effective management of urban systems. This comes at a time when there is a growing awareness of the capabilities of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in enhancing public service delivery and the performance of urban governance. As a result, there has been a recent global proliferation of data-driven and tech-related tools to steward more active and responsive problem- solving capabilities of cities. This has prompted a number of African nations to start experimenting with the idea of developing a ‘digital’ or ‘smart’ city. The City of Cape Town is currently embarking on an ambitious and exciting journey to become Africa’s first truly ‘digital city’. With its early adoption of key technological interventions and its growing reputation as a global tech hub, Cape Town is increasingly being regarded as a pioneering city driving smart and digital urbanism in Africa. Globally, there is little consensus on the conceptualisation of ‘smart’ and ‘digital’ cities and the differences between the two. This is particularly the case in Africa where there have been very few attempts to clearly define how this concept ought to be conceived in a context that is characterised by rapid urbanisation, informality, growing poverty and inequality and high levels of unemployment. Defining such an agenda is critical to developing clear urban strategies. This study aims to help define these strategies through an examination of CapeTown’s smart city strategy. Through a series of semi-structured interviews and a review of policy documents, the research aims to highlight the key characteristics of Cape Town’s digital city strategy, and in turn, identify the vital opportunities and challenges that the city is likely to face on its digital journey. In identifying the above, the paper also aims to contribute to the dearth of literature centred around defining how these concepts are understood and implemented in an African context with the hope of building the beginnings of a foundation to develop an Afro-centric conceptualisation for smart urbanism.