Sejong Smart City Archive Logo

 1

We, representatives of local governments, surban policy makers, entrepreneurs, experts, academicians and participants have assembled at the First SEJONG Smartcity Forum on-line in Sejong, Republic of Korea, from 27 to 29 April 2021, to consider purposes, principles and commitments to be pursued under the smart city idea, and furthermore to discuss how to realize it on the policy, technical, and socio-economic aspects, in particular with the discussion sessions for the various subjects; those are “Sustainable and Safe city”, “Eco-green and Energy efficient city”, “Joint venture and Joining governance”, “Open data platform and On-demand service”, “New deal for post corona and Non-contact city life”, “Global cooperation and Global development”(all the initial letters of these titles of the sessions make “SEJONG”).

 2

The world’s urban population is expected to by 2050 reach its 70% of the earth, and now the whole urban area is already occupying 80% of the world GDP, making the urbanization one of the most challenging issues relating to human civilization for sustainable development as well as quality of life such as infrastructure & basic service, housing, public health, environment, security, decent jobs, etc. We suggest that Smart City services should be paid stronger attention to as an alternative solution and at the same time a future modeling of the cities over the world for both the improvement of sustainability and creative opportunities of human development.

 3

We, fighting the global health threats posed by COVID-19, and recognizing that the spread of the pandemic, especially communicable disease, is a common danger with serious consequences for public health that calls for the widest mutual cooperation at the international, regional, and national level and the participation of all central/local governments in an effective and comprehensive measures for the control thereof, enthusiastically recommend that Smart City and its realization should, as a top priority, address this aspect of public health protection through the effective and appropriate application of such technology as for identifying, preventing and mitigating the impacts of infectious diseases, and also through strengthened resilience enabling, inter alia, work and living modes to be safer under the auspices of ICT infrastructure and extended networks.

 4

Bearing in mind that it is difficult to this day to agree on a precise definition of Smart City, we acknowledge with caution that a smart city pursues such civic service platforms, infrastructure or innovative state, based on new technology, mainly ICT, and with higher connectivity and intelligence networking amongst people, things and information as to contribute to improving the quality of life as well as to support a sustainable, strong, fair and healthy economic, social, and cultural development within the region. However, we should like to stress that the ways and means for Smart City, and its types may be diverse according to each community and city’s conditions, challenges and objectives, and should depend on such democratic principles as fairness and transparency for relevant policy determination with the full participation of all the stakeholders.

 5

In order to reaffirm our strong commitment in support of open, fair, humane, reliable, secure, innovative and accountable Smart City, and to create the conditions necessary to advance the wider Smart City services over the world, and thus to guide the whole aspects of the design, building up and management of Smart City, we herewith resolve to adopt the following principles:

( a )

People-centered, age- and gender-responsive approaches should be ensured in support of the effective participation and inclusion of all sectors and groups of people, and, at same vein, particular attention should be given for all the vulnerable populations;

( b )

All the process for making Smart City and its realization should contribute to the implementation and localization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Resolution 70/1 of the General Assembly of the United Nations) and their Sustainable Development Goals including Goal 11 of making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable;

( c )

Human dignity, fundamental human rights and freedoms should be, as critical steps, taken into consideration for the whole process for making Smart City, and any information system therein should provide a clear policy for the collection, storage, use, and disclosure of personal data and information which are strictly subject to the legitimate and due process including, but not limited to, the consent of the individual concerned. In this respect, the Declaration of Cities Coalition for Digital Rights adopted by the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights and with the support of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat) should be universally endorsed, and applied mutatis mutandis in this subject;

( d )

National and local governments should be jointly and severally responsible, through policy and legislative measures, for the establishing of the regulatory systems necessary to ensure, among others, lawful interception, service dependability, personal data protection, security, open access, interoperability, service operator/providers’ duties, and also they should push for institutional improvements including deregulation to pave the way for seamless as well as sleek introduction and development of the services, in particular, welcoming such drastic deregulations by introducing ‘Smart City-type Regulatory Sandbox’;

( e )

Financing Smart City requires a mix of various funding sources and models rather than classic municipal funding, mobilizing public initiatives and funds to support ambitious innovation with the business sector to invest in Smart City projects despite high technological risk, difficulties over uncertain returns on investment or regulatory difficulties, and the regulatory measures should make sure to be equitably compensated by benefits to motivate all groups of stakeholders including all residents also entitled to share the substantial benefit therefrom;

( f )

Interoperability, scalability, shareability, measurability, resilience and security should be, as critical factors, taken into account for ICT infrastructures development of Smart City by considering best practices, and open and consensus-based standards/models, and central/local governments should work together with communities and industry such as public and private investors, startups, academia, and citizens to develop open, consensus based and technology-neutral standards that meet smart city needs;

( g )

To develop a smart city, central/local governments should have consistent strategies, clear visions, and plans and specify their detail and tailored requirements, and move in the direction of promoting integrated strategies of local, regional and national level so as to help the syntactic and semantic interoperability of their ICT infrastructures to establish Smart City ecosystems on a large scale.

 6

We support more bottom-up civic co-creation, decentralization and balanced development rather than a top-down tech-driven paradigm in tandem with such new technologies as artificial intelligence(AI), blockchain, big data, internet of things(IOT) that are in progress to be deployed for Smart City services, highly appreciating the delivery of services thus far made or to be so for residents such as ‘smart’ governance, energy, environment, mobility, healthcare, education, culture, innovative economy & job, and, furthermore, we look forward to adequately respond to emerging and evolving socio-economic changes and development posed by the appearance of so called the 4th Industrial Revolution through the wider application and realization of Smart City in a manner to address even socio-economic implications like sharing amongst populations of benefits as well as opportunities of economic, social and technological advancements that Smart City will be able to bring to us.

 7

We endeavor to strengthen international cooperation at all the levels of public and private sectors as a cornerstone of our efforts to enhance Smart City development and services such as sharing best practices, standard development, and cross-validation in terms of Smart City technology and services, and encourage central/local governments, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations, and other relevant entities and experts to help promote technological, regulatory, and financial cooperation including capacity building, as a way of development cooperation, for cities in developing counties.

 8

We acknowledge the on-going increasing demand for Smart City in urban design through management, and significant role of such an international forum as for the exchange of views and experiences amongst central/local governments, international organizations, businesses and individual experts representing various professions and disciplines in order to identify emerging trends and issues, and to seek best practices thereon. We recognize the salient and important contributions of this forum to Smart City development as well as to the identification of emerging trends and issues therein so as to recommend this forum to be continued and, as appropriate, at least every two years.

 9

We express our profound gratitude to the people and Government of Sejong City for the successful organizing, and excellent facilities provided for the 1st Forum.