Abu-Ghazaleh: A Smart City Must Serve Its Human Purposes

A smart city cannot be for the citizens if it doesn’t serve its human purposes, according to HE Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, chair of the Honorary Council of the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization/New York.

In an exclusive interview with Tom Dallessio, president, CEO and publisher of Next City, Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh stressed on what "Smart" really means "You can have the best technology, the best cleanliness, best roads, best everything, but if it doesn’t take into consideration my comfort as a human being, it is not smart."

"Now we have reached a point that we have become captives to the idea of how developed we are and how much we have achieved in terms of ICT, and we forgot that whatever we do in ICT in itself is a tool. I chaired the UN Global Alliance for ICT for Development and our full concentration, how we can use ICT for better and more economic development," Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh said.

In New York, the UN launched the Social Impact Fund High Level Advisory Board (UNSIF-HLAB).which Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh is a member in out of his strong belief in a better world through the use of technology.

"I’m a rules man. In my life there are many rule-making bodies like the International Accounting Standards Board and standards formulation about how we can shift our gear to talking about impact on the citizen. You can have great development but deterioration in the status of the everyday citizen. Therefore, to me, smartness is defined by its level of impact on the citizen and not on the level of the technology," he said.

According to Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh who participated in the foundation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in his capacity as the chair of the UN Global Alliance for ICT for Development, to sustain something is to keep it, "We don’t want to sustain development, we don’t want to sustain the goals. Sustain means keep them, not achieve them."

"I think what we need is terms like progress. We need progress goals, not sustainable development goals. We need progress goals with a time frame, and that is what was wrong with the first millennium development goals. I was part of it and I asked for a timeline they said it’s impossible. We need to have a timeline and not just wait for another 15 years. The world situation is getting worse by the day if we talk worldwide. All the facts, all the social indicators are getting worse every day," he said.

Senator Abu-Ghazaleh has chaired more than 14 UN taskforces and initiatives. He was Vice Chair of the UN Global Compact as well as member of several UN programs under Secretary-General Kofi Anan and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon mandates. Most recently he was appointed Special Ambassador of the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development.

Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh believes that there is a serious problem in the world.

"We have a very serious problem in the world, and that serious problem cannot be achieved by creating buzzwords that make everybody feel happy. Social indicators have to be just like the economic and financial indicators. They have to be sectoral. We have to have an indicator on education, social impact of education, social impact in economic level of living or poverty levels or economic well-being levels, on health, on all the battles that affect the well-being of a person," he said.

"We have to start using the word people-centric. That’s what I like to be, people-centric and not state-centric because all indicators are left to the state, to the country. Unemployment rates, inflation rates, etc. Liquidity, balance of payment. These are state indicators. I’d like to see people-centric indicators that show how are we moving or progressing," he concluded.

Based in Philadelphia, Next City provides daily online coverage of the leaders, policies and innovations driving progress in metropolitan regions across the world.