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Switzerland-based International Institute for Management Development (IMD) and the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities published the second edition of the Smart city Index last week (SCI) 2020, which is «a tool for action, an instrument for better lives for all citizens».
The index focuses on how citizens perceive the scope and impact of efforts to make their cities «smart». «The final score for each city is computed by using the perceptions of the last two years of the survey. The cities are distributed into four groups based on the UN Human Development Index (HDI) score of the economy they are part of», the authors of the index wrote.
In this second edition of the ranking, Rabat, ranked 101st in the previous edition, falls down in the ranking to 105th out of 109 countries. It is ahead of Egyptian capital Cairo and is placed behind Manilla, Philippines. As a result, the capital of Morocco is among the bottom 5 cities in the ranking.
From a list of 15 indicators, survey respondents were asked to select 5 that they consider the most urgent for the Moroccan capital. Unemployment is the top priority (61.9% of respondents), followed by access to affordable housing (53.7%), health services (50.4%), school education (45.5%) and security (43.4%).
53.7% of respondents said they were ready to grant personal data in order to reduce traffic congestion, 75.8% said they were comfortable with facial recognition technologies to reduce crime, while 60.2% believe that the availability of information online has increased their confidence in the authorities.
Second smartest city in Africa and 4th in the MENA region
Based on the responses, the index ranked the capital in category D (the last) for structures and technologies. For the structures part, defined on the basis of five key areas (health and safety, mobility, activities, opportunities and governance), the scores of the Moroccan capital thus vary between 69.7 points obtained for cultural activities deemed satisfactory and air pollution (33.9 out of 100).
As for technologies, Rabat's scores oscillate between 36.7 points for the presence of a website or an application allowing residents to effectively monitor air pollution and 67.4 points out of 100 for the online purchase of tickets for shows and museums.
However, the ranking of Rabat compared to its Arab and African neighbors has not changed compared to the previous edition. Thus, it remains the 4th smart city in the MENA region, behind Abu Dhabi (42nd place), Dubai (43rd) and Riyadh (53rd). Rabat also remains the second in Africa, behind Cape Town (103) and ahead of four other African cities (Cairo, Abuja, Nairobi and Lagos (109th)).
The top 5 of the best smart cities is dominated by Singapore (1st place in the world), Helsinki (Finland), Zurich (Switzerland), Auckland (New Zealand) and Oslo (Norway).
