Vusumuzi Dube
Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
BULAWAYO will on Tuesday play host to the second edition of the Financing Smart Cities and Rural Connect Conference, with over 120 delegates expected to attend including senior Government officials.
The conference will have the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works, which is the lead implementer Ministry in the smart city concept, giving the keynote address while other Ministries that are expected to attend are the Ministry of Energy and Power Development and that of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Management.
The conference is being organised by DEAT Capital and will run under the theme, Innovative financing solutions in the cities and rural communities’ ecosystem towards Vision 2030. In a statement, DEAT Capital managing director Mr Nicky Moyo said the theme focuses on accelerating the implementation of Zimbabwe’s Smart Cities Concept.
“Zimbabwe is embarking on a slate of ambitious and new, fourth-generation ‘smart cities’ on the cusp of the nation’s Sustainable Development Strategy Vision 2030.
The transformation of cities and rural communities is accelerating. Apart from different factors that contribute to the development of a smart city, finance acts as the backbone.
“Given the volume of funds required for modernising infrastructure, smart cities, and rural communities need to consider innovative financing strategies to transform their vision into reality.
Traditionally, city and rural infrastructure have been provided by the public sector out of current fiscal resources.
Grants from the central government can only meet a small part of the total needs for infrastructure and services. Concessionary loans and international donations rarely make up the shortfall, even for developing nations like Zimbabwe,” said Mr Moyo.
He said the event will have intensive and distinctive discussions with specialized tracks covering smart healthcare, smart urban and rural infrastructure, smart economy, fintech, smart rail, smart tourism, smart energy, smart agriculture, smart housing, smart mobility, and smart urban and rural governance.
“The technologies behind Smart Cities evolve too fast to accommodate traditional models for municipal projects, which often involve long timelines and complex procurements, and typically require large budgets for capital projects and operations.
To realise the promise of Smart Cities, governments need a new approach to financing their projects, forming partnerships, procuring products and services, and providing governance.
Financiers that generally understand smart cities and rural communities often have an infrastructure background; however, their preference is for long-term projects,” said Mr Moyo.
He said there will be massive opportunities of the prescribed asset status framework to develop smart rural projects, and smart city infrastructure solutions during the conference.
“We will be gathering special economic zones, investors, banks, infrastructure planners, construction providers, technologists, municipal leaders, senior government officials, donors, financiers, investors, industrialists, academics, and many more.
This will be a showcase of financing and technical solutions for smart cities and rural applications such as smart housing, smart grids, agritech, e-commerce, digital finance, e-grocery platforms, smart transport system, smart tourism, smart education, smart health, smart geospatial systems and e-governance,” said Mr Moyo.
Online Reporter