Paper short abstract:

African Cities are Smart Cities. How else cities with over 65% informal settlements are able to run and do not collapse? The smart city definition has to be redefined considering “smart” informal knowledge, -infrastructure and -economical systems which keep the African cities on moving and growing.

Paper long abstract:

This contribution asks to question the necessity to apply an occidentally shaped Smart City concept 1 to 1 to the Urban African context and appeals to adapt and define an African Smart City concept based on African urban best-practices. Highlighting the efficiency of informal infrastructure, as informal transportation models, informal construction sector and informal markets, which function even with low investments and contribute to food security, provide popular transportation systems, supply shelter and generate income to a large part of the city inhabitants and therefore by definition should be considered Smart Cities.

This proposal further illustrates by analyzing urban concepts based on the informal African settlements and with the example of ongoing projects how this African Smart Cities could get even smarter by combining informal knowledge with sustainable technologies as for example decentralized renewable energy systems and decentralized waste-water infrastructure.

And discusses the necessity of integral knowledge management on city and on neighborhood level to guarantee the accessibility and participation to smart City solutions to all layers of the inhabitants of African cities enabling exchange, ownership and share of solutions and thereby fostering an integral and sustainable development of Africa's Smart Cities.