Building & securing digital public infrastructure - A playbook for local and regional governments

Launched in 2020, UN-Habitat’s flagship programme ‘People-centered Smart Cities’ acknowledges the transformative potential that digital technologies can have for sustainable urban development. Through the people-centered smart cities flagship programme, UN- Habitat provides strategic and technical support on digital transformation to national, regional and local governments. ‘Building & securing digital public infrastructure’ is one of the new playbooks which are key normative components of UN-Habitat’s people-centered smart cities flagship programme. This new serie of playbooks aim to empower local governments to take a multi-stakeholder approach to digital transformation that realizes sustainability, inclusivity, prosperity and human rights for the benefit of all. To that end, local, regional and national governments will find pragmatic guidance for how to develop smart city strategies that are more inclusive, sustainable, and aligned to the actual needs of residents. Traditionally, infrastructure has referred to physical systems like roads, sidewalks, and power grids that underpin daily life in cities. Today, local and national governments are facing a new layer of public infrastructure that is taking precedence over how cities control, manage and understand the systems they operate: digital infrastructure. In the context of this playbook, digital infrastructure refers to the tools and systems required to make digital life function in cities.