Smarter and Inclusive Cities

Welcome to the course! 

Facilitating smarter and inclusive city development is one of the pathways toward a sustainable urban future. Smarter and inclusive cities make use of the opportunities provided by emerging technologies to facilitate economic growth, social inclusion, and climate action. Making cities smarter and more inclusive can bring about transformational change in towns and cities to improve the quality of life, protect natural resources, and pursue socio-economic development.  

The goal of the efforts and aspirations toward making cities smarter and more inclusive is to increase the quality of life and to ensure prosperity for all. This ambition has a distinct alignment with several SDGs Sustainable Development Goals. Consequently, smart, and inclusive city development is one of the pathways toward sustainability.

Building on the knowledge gained in the Foundations for Future Readiness, we will take a broader and deeper look at what smarter and inclusive city development is all about.  

What will this course cover?

This course introduces several key topics to help municipalities embrace a smarter and more inclusive urban future. It is designed to enable municipalities to gain a broad understanding of how cities can become smarter and more inclusive.  

The course aims to provide answers to the following questions:

• Why do we need smarter and more inclusive cities?
• What is a smarter and inclusive city?
• What are the key approaches to fostering innovation in smarter and inclusive cities?
• Why are Governance and strategic planning important for smarter and inclusive cities?
• What is a smarter and more inclusive city strategy?  
• How can experimentation and agile management facilitate smarter and inclusive city development?
• Why is monitoring and assessment important for developing smarter and inclusive cities?

What can I expect to gain from this course?

The course includes five modules and provides a range of opportunities to learn. From video summaries and bite-sized content to interactive quizzes and discussions, the course provides new learning and helps you apply them to your own context. In addition, the course brings examples of smarter and inclusive city development from around the world, providing inspiration and practical insights from other cities and municipalities.

Our learning objectives are:

• Understand the concept of and need for smarter and more inclusive cities.
• Explore the key approaches to fostering innovation in smarter and inclusive cities.
• Build awareness of the key dimensions of smarter and inclusive cities Governance and strategy process.  
• Explore how experimentation and agile management can facilitate smarter and inclusive city development.
• Understand the importance of monitoring and assessment of smarter and inclusive cities.

How is this course structured?

The deep-dive course on Smarter and Inclusive Cities consists of five modules; each module is designed to complement and extend the previous one.  

• The first module, 'Inclusivity for Smarter City Development,' will unpack the people-centered approach to making cities smarter and more inclusive and, through several examples, demonstrate different ways of fostering smarter and inclusive city innovation.  
• The second module, 'Smarter Governance,' will take a deep dive into understanding smarter and inclusive city Governance, key stakeholders, drivers, and barriers to smarter and inclusive city development.  
• The third module will unpack ‘Planning for smarter and inclusive cities' focusing on smarter and inclusive city strategies, particularities of planning a smarter and inclusive city or town, and typical thematic areas of action.  
• The fourth module, 'Smarter and Inclusive City Projects and Pilots,' will look at the mechanisms and approaches to developing locally adapted and people-centered smarter and inclusive city solutions and explain how to go from planning to action.  
• Finally, the fifth module will focus on implementing, adopting, monitoring, and assessing smarter and inclusive city initiatives.  

How to join?

To enter the course, please click the red "Join" button to the left. 

The course is open access (after registration with an email address) for anyone interested. The course is expected to take 4-5 hours, however, it is advised that the course is taken as part of the development of the P4EG within your town or city. 

You can flexibly follow the modules in this course to suit your learning needs. Each module can be accessed ‘on-demand’ for you to learn at your own pace, both individually, or as a team of colleagues in your municipality!

Learn more about local learning opportunities here: 

Armenia Community
Azerbaijan Community
Georgia Community
Moldova Community
Ukraine Community

Contact us

• UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub
  [email protected] / Elina Jarvela / Semira Osmanovic

• European Commission, DG NEAR
  Thibault Charlet

This course has been co-created for the Urban Learning Center and M4EG by Arup, Climate KIC, TalTech and UNDP.