Asean smart city initiatives risk raising their own governance issues

AS THE Asean chair this year, Singapore is proposing an Asean Smart Cities Network (ASCN) framework that will create a set of normative guidelines to inform a member state's smart city development. The process is moving fast, with a concept note adopted in April at the 32nd Asean Summit and the first ASCN meeting held at the World Cities Summit on July 8 that saw five agreements signed between ASCN cities, solution providers and external partners.

By November, member states plan to formally adopt the Smart Cities Framework at the 33rd Asean Summit and the upcoming Asean chairs, Thailand and Vietnam, are likely to continue pursuing the ASCN during their chairmanship.

This is the right time to discuss smart cities - the United Nation's 2018 Revision of World Urbanisation Prospects report, produced by its Population Division, predicts that nearly seven in 10 of the world's population will live in urban areas by 2050. For populous Asean countries, the pace of urbanisation is expected to be rapid: 90 million more people are expected to move into urban centres by 2030. When cities become denser, governance issues such as congestion, increased housing demand and rising inequality, among others, will become a challenge for the authorities.