July 26-27, Vinnytsya: On the initiative of the Vinnytsya City Council in cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), as well as Association "E-governance Cities of Ukraine" and CE "Institute of Cities" the International Conference was held: "Smart city: electronic technologies for promoting local democracy and urban sustainable development». IT specialists from regional centers of Ukraine, as well as experts from Georgia, Estonia, Slovakia and Poland have discussed the concept of "smart city» and exchanged best practices among cities.
Traditionally, the city is defined as a «smart city», if local investments in human and social capital, as well as in traditional (transportation) and innovative (IT) infrastructure communications, contribute to sustainable economic development and higher living standards due to clever management of natural resources and participatory governance. This is particularly important in light of the decisions of the Conference on Sustainable development Rio+20.
Volodymyr Groysman, Mayor of Vinnytsya Municipality, welcomed the participants and noted that "Intelligent City" is the tool that can be used to improve the quality of life, city management and develop sustainability. "It's very important to use the experience of our partners, despite of their location: Canada, Georgia or Estonia. We studied experience of different countries; we are already to improve our external resources”.
The representative of the main partner of the conference "Smart City" - Oksana Remiga, Senior Programme Manager of UNDP Ukraine, - noted that local development is a priority for UNDP. "About 50% of UNDP activity is devoted to local development. We closely work with rural areas, but new managerial ideas appear in the cities - said Oksana Remiga. - We are grateful to have such partners as Vinnitsa, which are far ahead of ideas, innovations and trends taking place in Ukraine. This is a good example of improving living standards generally. I truly hope, that the issues to be discussed at this conference, will impact the implementation of the concept of Smart City all over Ukraine.
Arvo Ott, director of E-governance Academy in Tallin, (Estonia) told that in his country has a number of projects already working and aimed at communication between citizen and authorities with the help of IT, ordering necessary requests and services through the Internet etc. "The main idea is not just in implementing these mechanisms, but also that the government and municipalities use these data to improve the management process - said Arvo Ott. – It is evident for me that Vinnytsya is going very well with it. This is the right way, because most services, given to the residents, are provided by municipalities. To integrate these services on the municipal level, it is important to have general services on the central level. And this is the most difficult question that affects the future.”
Joseph Petrash, Senior Manager of the Project "Transparent City" and spokesman of the Martin City Council (Slovakia), told that the experience of their project, considered for updating the site of Vinnitsa municipality, proves that changes can be started at the local level. "As soon as I return to my city, I will definitely share the experience of Vinnytysa, which I saw here, particularly on "Transparent Office "- says Mr. Petrash. – One problem exists in the field of effective usage of IT, it is essential to have changes at the national level, especially in legislation. It would enable municipalities to make decisions and changes on their own.”
Maria Marsagahlshvili, the representative of Architecture Service of Tbilisi (Georgia), Tbilisi City Hall, stressed that the aspect of publicity is very important for the “smart city” system. "The electronic technologies make information available - said Maria Marsahlshvili. - If a person in Tbilisi wants to get quickly a particular permit on certain issues of architecture and not to wait for 10-20 days, he/she has to pay an official fee, in this case, the decision will be issued in a shorter period. It reduces corruption, as everything is open, transparent and, legal”.
“In Vinnytsya we found a number of projects that we would like to introduce in the work of our city, for example, “The Map of Citizens’ Applications”, Dominika Kovalcka noted, the coordinator of GIS data, Kielce (Poland). We came to the conference to share our knowledge, but also to learn, as well as the experience of Vinnytsya IT projects”.
“I want to thank you for the invitation to participate in the conference, I’m very pleased that our city has such a strong partner as Vinnitsa, which is one of the leaders in introduction of IT throughout Ukraine”- said Volodymyr Deboy, Zhytomyr City Mayor. “We also tried to make such steps, but they were not systematic, but after this conference, we will be able to generalize our developments, use experience of international colleagues and of other cities, so Zhytomyr will be able to develop itself rapidly. I am sure that we can follow Vinnitsa and I am proud that this city has such achievements.”
On July 27, the International Day of system administrator, the participants of the conference 'Smart City' got familiarized with Vinnytsya achievements in the field of management. They visited the Centre of Administrative Services Provision "Transparent Office" and learned about the plans to introduce similar centers in the city that will start operating in autumn. In addition, the representatives of other cities learned the work of rapid response system "clock guard", the system of internal and external communications, introduction of e-cards for patients to reform the system of healthcare, the practice of automatic calculation of subsidies, etc..
"We can present many other things that have been already developed as for today - said Volodymyr Groysman. - Such technologies allow to simplify things and ease life for the residents on the one hand, on the other - make services accessible, transparent and understandable for residents, make government transparent and effective.”
In the nearest future the materials of the conference will be available at the website of UNDP/ MGSDP.
For more information please contact Olena Ursu, Governance and Sustainable Development Expert UNDP/MGSDP, at olena.ursu@undp.org or Tel.: (044) 584-34-75, Fax.: (044) 584-34-76.
