BY DARGIE KAHSAY
Last week, a delegation of the ministry of Innovation and Technology led by Minister Belete Molla (PhD) has visited the smart Adama initiative project and other projects in Adama City. The visiting tour aims to see the developments of smart Adama initiative and other projects that are being applied to facilitate the digital service delivery in Adama City administration by the municipal administration of Adama.
According to Ministry of Innovation and Technology, Adama City higher officials and higher officials from the ministry had visited the one-stop center, launched to promote and to attract investment flows and to ease service delivery in Adama. They had also visited the service improvement projects with the goal of improving the livelihoods of inhabitants of Adama City. They also watched technology-based job-creation and investment activities in Adama.
During the visit, Adama City Mayor, Hailu Jelde said that the municipality of the city is working to make Adama a peaceful, ideal city for investment and tourism and suitable city for its habitants by easing the bureaucracy. According to him, the city administration of Adama is investing its maximum capacity to expand and develop smart services in Adama, calling other stakeholders to support the smart initiative of Adama city.
As to Hailu, Adama is the ideal place for investment and tourism. Considering this in mind, parallel to making the city suitable for its habitants by making services more efficient, the city administration is working to make Adama City an ideal place for investors and tourists by expanding digital services. To realize it, the municipality is working on technological advancements in the service sector and developing smart Adama initiative.
During the joint tour of higher officials of Ministry of Innovation and Technology and Adama City Administration officials, higher officials of Adama City Administration explain about the developments of digitalization, expansion of information centers, smart city project and other technological and digital development efforts in Adama City during the visit to public and different private owned projects.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Innovation and Technology, Belete Molla (PhD) on his part during the event said that the activities being undertaken in Adama City in expanding digitalization, the outcomes of digitalization, the new values introduced by Gojo industry and modern service delivery in the service sectors are important developments to promote smart city and to make Adama City a model city in modernizing services and making the city suitable for its inhabitants. As tohim, the expansion of digitalization and the smart Adama initiative would make the city a preferable ideal tourism and investment destination city.
Belete further noted that the efforts that are being taken on transforming the old Gojo industry more productive to benefit more citizens through connecting with modern and digital technology in Adama are exemplary. The Minister added that the decision and the commitment of the municipal administration of Adama City to apply online services and to introduce full electronic payment systems through expanding digitalization is also an incredible move to ease service delivery in Adama. This would help to make services easily accessible for citizens and also to combat mal-administration and corruptions in service delivery across public sectors.
“Technology have irreplaceable role in making our cities and towns peaceful and ideal places for investments, businesses and tourism,” Belete stated adding that “to realize the vision of Digital Ethiopia 2025 strategy, it is important to support the initiatives in expansion of digital and technological services and the new smart city projects in cities.” Strengthening the efforts being undertaken in Adama City is crucial to make the city a model and exemplary city and to expand the experiences to other cities of our country.
Belete assured his commitment to work jointly with Adama City Administration and other government sectors so as to realize the initiative undertaken to create smart Adama. Realizing the vision of creating smart city is an important vision to make Ethiopia’s cities and towns’ attractive, ideal investment and suitable tourism destination places.
According to the municipality of Adama City, the initiative of smart city project aims to modernize services, to make the city ideal place for investment flows and to make the city suitable for the dwellers of the city by easing facilities. The city administration is investing its maximum capacity to realize the vision and to make Adama’s smart city project an exemplary project. Mayor of the city calls government and private stakeholders to support the smart city initiative by supporting necessary technological inputs that can be helpful to facilitate the project.
According to European Union Commission’s website, a smart city is a place where traditional networks and services are made more efficient with the use of digital solutions for the benefit of its inhabitants and business. It is applying digital technologies to wisely use of resources and to manage emissions in cities. “Smart city means smarter urban transport networks, upgraded water supply and waste disposal facilities and more efficient ways to light and heat buildings. It also means a more interactive and responsive city administration, safer public spaces and meeting the needs of all inclusive population.”
Hence, in Ethiopia, efforts are underway to apply smart city initiative and Smart Adama initiative is among these initiatives that aim to provide efficient and effective public services by making the traditional service provision techniques more modern, easy and accessible. Development of smart city would accelerate business transaction, economic development, infrastructural networking and to boost investments and job creation opportunities in the growing cities of Ethiopia.
Smart city initiatives can significantly contribute to introduce latest, easy and accessible technologies that would facilitate socio-economic development in urban areas. Currently, services are growingly digitized Smart city initiative can accelerate technological expansion and to make life more easy in urban areas. Considering the benefits of smart city, Addis Ababa City Administration has launched Smart City Project on December 2022 officially. During the launching ceremony, Addis Ababa City mayor Adanech Abiebie said that Smart City Project aims at addressing the challenges those inhabitants of the city are facing during service delivery and to transform the image of the capital.
During the launching event, Adanech stated that the Smart City Project to create innovative city that can exploit technologies and new innovations to enhance public services and the end goal of the project is to realize quality of life for people living in the capital. Smart city can utilize data analytics, sensor technology, and other advanced technologies to optimize resources, improve efficiency, and to reduce waste. It is a system by applying technology in the areas of transportation, energy, healthcare, security, communication and other services.
Smart cities commonly uses information communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, a strong pro-business philosophy, real-time monitoring, increasing use of technology and innovation, and sustainability. In addition to making the available cities smart to their residents, it also helps to design and to start small and model cities.
The smart cities initiative projects are aiming at making cities technological-driven, livable, and suitable. As it helps innovations and cities to go parallel, it has an important role in providing simple, convenient, and technology-driven services to solve problems in cities in a sustainable manner.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 28 APRIL 2023
