The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has called upon urban authorities to adopt international standards on smart cities to provide quality life to their citizens.
According to UNBS Executive Director, Dr. Ben Manyindo, urban authorities should provide utilities like adequate water and energy for the citizens that live there.
“Urban authorities should strive for sufficient fresh water, universal access to cleaner energy, the ability to travel efficiently, a sense of safety and security to provide a decent quality of life to their citizens,” Dr. Manyindo said.
The world commemorated the World Standards Day on October 14 under the theme: ‘Standards make cities smarter’, with a leading call for collaborative efforts of experts worldwide to develop the voluntary technical agreements that are published as International Standards.
With expanding urban areas expected to host up to 70 Per cent of the total world population by 2050, adopting international standards form smart cities has become a necessity, Dr Manyindo noted.
“Standards contain expert knowledge and best practices, and are essential enablers in ensuring quality and performance of products and services. Without benchmarking on International Standards, cities will struggle to run safe and smooth services,” he added.
Manyindo urged the government ministries, departments, and agencies represented to constitute a technical committee to discuss and implement the standards for smart cities.
The KCCA Director Physical Planning, Mr. Moses Atwine, said days ago that the authority had developed a ‘smart city’ roadmap.
“As KCCA, we have embraced the concept of smart cities and we undertaking a number of initiatives to implement standards for smart cities,” Mr. Atwine said.
The World Standards Day is an initiative of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), three leading developers of International Standards.
