Experimenting with smart city concepts and digital solutions in municipalities of the Global South: An international development cooperation perspective from South Africa

Abstract

Smart city concepts and digital solutions have become popular in many cities and municipalities around the globe. They are viewed as an opportunity to increase governance efficiency, improve the quality of service delivery, and strengthen democratic practices. International development cooperation agencies, like Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, increasingly turn to digitalisation to address municipal deficiencies in the Global South. Yet, their role in introducing and sustaining small-scale smart city solutions within weak local governments remains underexplored. This study provides new perspectives on the advantages, challenges, and general practices of implementing digitalisation and smart city solutions in weak local governments from an international development cooperation perspective. It dives deeper into projects conceptualised as part of the Governance Support Programme II in South Africa. Using qualitative research, it argues that it is possible to foster smart city concepts by implementing frugal, small-scale, simple Information and Communication Technology solutions. However, securing long-term sustainability and institutional prioritisation of these solutions presents significant challenges for development agencies. These findings can influence key decision-makers in development agencies and local governments in the Global South to introduce innovative smart city solutions to resolve persistent governance failures.