An ASToN-ishing journey, our main highlights
In February 2023, the ASToN network wrapped up its conclusions after 3 years of activities. For a bit more than 3 years, this flagship programme brought together representatives from 11 African cities working on digital projects to create sustainable and inclusive cities. Here is a snapshot of our main learnings.
How can African cities innovate in a sustainable and continuous way? How do we instil more collaboration and transparency within institutions used to working in silos? And how can citizens be brought along the way? In contexts where everything is urgent, what is the real role digital can play?
These are some of the questions we were asking ourselves when we were launching ASToN, the African Smart Towns Network. We started ASToN back in 2019, by taking inspiration in URBACT, a European city to city programme, that builds capacities within the European local administrations to tackle some of the most pressing urban challenges. By adapting the participatory and action-oriented method developed by URBACT to African cities’ contexts and needs, we were hoping that the 11 ASToN cities would develop sustainable digital solutions for their citizens and their territories.
The journey hasn’t always been smooth. In a time-frame like ours, partner cities were inevitably confronted with social unrest (like the protests in Lagos December 2020), national or local elections and political change (the coup d’état in Mali summer 2020, just to mention one), extreme weather conditions (extreme flooding in Niamey, Niger autumn 2020) or sanitary crisis (Ebola crisis in Uganda end 2022). COVID-19 hit us and forced us to redesign our activities like many other international programmes. Working across continents and being confronted with the increase of cases at various moments, depending where we were situated we had to accept several things: 1. It was ok for cities to “go silent” for a certain period, to deal with the local crisis; 2. Our working method had to be flexible enough for them to reintegrate the network and be able to catch up.
We learned many things about piloting such a network but also about driving digital innovation in contexts of instability and rapid change. Here are our highlights:
1. Providing cities a framework to drive digital transformation and that unlockes momentum and resources for their teams
While digital transformation was the core of ASToN, as we started the programme we quickly realised that some cross-cutting challenges were similar to all the cities at various degrees:
- building digital capacities inside a municipality takes time esp. with limited human resources
- at some point in time all cities were confronted with the make-or-buy dilemma, besides the initial big investment that most digital projects requested
- introducing digital & tech in city administrations was often at a clash with traditional ways of working, especially where tasks were manual and hence it implied a risk of job loss
The digital maturity of both institutions and the territory was variable across the network, with some cities like Niamey or Bamako kick-starting their first digital project with us and others like Kigali or Kampala, already having smart city frameworks and projects in place. Despite this variety, we soon realised that working with peers, both locally and internationally, gave cities the necessary momentum to drive the process forward, establish powerful relationships, and find the necessary skills and resources to get to work.
Agnes Khawa from Kampala Capital City Authority, Uganda and member of ASToN shares their experience:
“From ASToN, Kampala has been able to come up with a digital mobility solution for Kampala, also known as KlaConnect. With this digital solution, citizens will be able to improve their mobility experience through viewing real time traffic information, incidents, road closures and diversions and also receive feedback from the city authority. We have also been able to bring together various stakeholders in a local action group, comprising members from the public sector, private sectors, politicians and also citizens. We were coming together as a group to co-design a solution, to solve an urban challenge.”
By working both with an international group of peers and a local stakeholder group, cities like Kampala are able to escape the make-or-buy dilemma, by designing solutions that were fully owned by the Municipality but often built with private partners that were part of the local group. Furthermore, working with other stakeholders, ensures that the project is followed through and the Municipality stays committed through-out the process . This is done by a mix of political will, team engagement and continuous relations with the other members of the network. Last but not least, in the case of cities like Niamey or Bamako, where decentralisation is still on-going, being part of a peer group of cites, empowers Municipalities to work with national bodies and build lasting partnerships with them. Here is what Mamane Ousmane from the Municipality of Niamey says in this regard:
“With regards to building the capacity of our internal staff, the national information agency which already accepted to host our data […] will also provide digital & tech training. We have planned to train the staff by finding a way to orient them to new functions. For example, those who are working manually, will receive training in the field of computer science to give them the ability to use the computer as a tool.”
2. Designing an adaptive learning journey and building sustainable relations
“Looking back at the three years of work, looking at the network, the local coordinators as experts in their own right in their city, I see the evolution and the capacities we were all able to build together by learning from one another. On a personal level, for me ASToN is a roadmap for all the other projects we are doing locally in Bizerte. Using the organisation in phases[1] and the different tools for problem definition, stakeholder engagement or prototyping is a straightforward way to advance in any kind of project. I also see that I am now more confident in what I do and deliver in my professional work.”
Wiem Amri, Municipality of Bizerte, Tunisia
One of our main assumptions when starting ASToN was that cities would advance faster in their digital transition journeys by being part of a group of peers, rather than doing it alone. For this reason, we needed to design a process that was flexible enough to take into consideration cities specific challenges and also stimulating enough for them to continue coming back for more. We had no idea if this would work. When covid-19 hit, we were even less sure a project like ours is feasible. How to bring people together from such different cultural and professional contexts and have them exchange in a meaningful way? Which would be the common denominator for learning across such a rich network and experienced practitioners?
By testing, learning, iterating, we designed a learning journey that was adaptive and responsive to the needs of cities. We offered a clear, regular rhythm and balanced bringing in technical expertise, and city experience. Overall, we brought cities together to learn collectively, better, faster, collectively. Here are the ley ingredients of our method:
- An action-oriented journey. A tailored three-year programme of events, workshops and guides to delivering action-oriented local action plans. Exposure to industry experts and investors, and opportunities for cities to showcase their work
- Peer learning. Regular interactions with a network of city practitioners from across Africa to learn from and support each other.
- Implementation & financial support. Bespoke coaching and support from experts to develop a local action plan. Budget to implement the project based on your needs.
As we advanced in the implementation of the project and needs changed we realised, it was important to let go of some of the structures that are no longer serving their purpose. For example, in the last 6 months we stopped producing the quarterly guide that was providing cities with the new learning areas and tools for the upcoming period. We did that as we realised that the focus was moving towards other aspects such as finalising the experimentation, the search for funding or the admin closure of the project.
Similarly, we realised quite early on in the project that in order to build a community, we needed to go where people were, whether it’s whatsapp or in-person and remove the barriers to engagement. This flexibility, mixed with the quarterly rhythm allowed cities to go silent for a certain period of time and come back and catch up if they wanted, which all of them did.
If you are interested to learn more about this part of our work, the detail is in the ASToN Blueprint, how to design, set-up and lead a city to city network?
3. Testing small and failing fast. Experimentation as a tool for cities
The Experimentation phase of the project was designed to allow local authorities to learn non-linear working ways like the agile method and use it to test pieces of their local action plan. The city’ teams made assumptions about their project which they then sought to validate or invalidate through experimentation, so that they could incorporate these learnings into their action plans. We wanted to support local authorities to embrace uncertainty and design projects that would allow them to act on evidence, adapt or pivot, and place learning (about their solutions, their users and other stakeholders) at the heart of their project.
The Experimentation phase was not mandatory, and cities only accessed if they wanted and were ready for it. Besides the grant provided for experimentation, cities also had access to support from experimentation coaches throughout the whole phase.
When they joined ASToN the city Sèmè-Podi in Benin aimed to develop a solution for the digitalisation of the city’s land register. The local team was concerned with the rising number of conflicts and trials linked to land ownership, due to the manual land management system of the city.
“Our solution was tested in neighbourhood of the city, on a 50ha area. The first hours of data collection were very complicated for the project because of the lack of cooperation of the citizen. Very quickly the local team organised encounters and exchanges in the neighbourhood, with the citizens and the wise man of the community to explain the project to them. We also used the local radio and public criers. We are proud to say this worked and we were able to collect 80% of the data from the neighbourhood. As a matter of fact, this worked so well that the citizens started organising themselves to provide the data. For us as a local authority, this approach was a way to learn about the importance of testing something small before scaling up and of communicating well with the citizens”.
Farid Salako, Municipality of Sèmè-Podji, Benin
One of the reasons why this worked so well in the case of Sèmè-Podji is because the Municipality was clear about the “why” or vision of the project. This allowed them to on one hand communicate about it efficiently to the citizens but also to deal with the uncertainty of the “how”. When in a first instance the normal data collection process did not work, they were able to add a communication layer to their experimentation, using the tools most relevant for the locals in order to attain their results.
Focusing on the principles of experimentation (rather than the methods) allowed cities to test their ideas in their own way. Through ASToN, we learnt that working through cycles of test-learn-iterate was often not just an unfamiliar and uncomfortable premise for public officials, but went against both the mechanisms and regulations of municipal authorities. For example, when the Municipality of Bizerte was looking to source a partner to develop a minimum-viable-product (MVP) of their solution, they found that existing procurement processes required them to provide a detailed, long-term, fixed scope of work, which left limited space to iterate the product based on learnings. In short, a fixed experimentation method would have been un-adapted or irrelevant for local authorities, and would not have supported them to actually test their assumptions.
If you are interested to learn more about this part of our work, the detail is in the ASToN Experiments catalogue
And what about impact?
As I am writing these lines and the project is officially ending, we do not have a major “WOW” to share with the world. This is partially because ASToN was a pilot project. As such we had to open many ways, put processes in place, learn from our errors and keep on trying. As for any pathfinder, the journey was not easy and it required a lot of energy. Another reason lays in the sheer essence of our work. ASToN is a capacity building programme and by nature, its most important aim was to shape the people involved in it, as much as they shaped the programme. The seeds we planted in the +3 years of work will keep on growing and bear fruit in the years to come.
In the meantime, here are a couple of things we are proud of…
[1] Explore, Engage, Experiment
