Toward Reimagining Smart City Plans and Strengthening Partnerships

CALD began 2022 by celebrating the successful wrapping up of its three-year Smart City Project (2019-2021).

To mark the event, CALD held a webinar on 27 January with the theme “Toward Reimagining Smart City Plans and Strengthening Partnerships.”

With support from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) for Freedom, the CALD Smart City Project had been carried out in cooperation with CALD member-parties Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of Taiwan, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), and Nation Awakening Party of Indonesia (PKB).

Highlighted at the webinar were the accomplishments of three local governments—Banyuwangi and Lumajang in Indonesia, and Taoyuan City in Taiwan—that had continued to push boundaries and implement solutions for their people even in the midst of the pandemic. As CALD Executive Director Lito Arlegue remarked at the event conducted via Zoom, local governments, being closest to the people, can be “hubs of innovation” and push for fast, effective, and sustainable solutions.”

“Government is best when it’s closest to the people…being with people immerses one with the real and pressing problems on the ground,” he said. “One gets a sense, firsthand, of what’s relevant and important.”

The webinar, which presented the project outputs of the three local governments, convened local government leaders, city government officials, and CALD members and partners, as well as students. The event also aimed to share the local governments’ respective smart-city plans as the world continued to face the challenge of reimagining cities in the aftermath f the pandemic—when the need to be resilient, efficient, and responsive becomes pertinent to achieve better-quality living.

Taoyuan, Taiwan

Karen Yu, Director General of the Information Technology Department of the Taoyuan City Government, shared the city’s vision on inclusiveness, diversity, and sustainability. Some 24 km west of Taipei, Taoyuan as a hybrid city welcomes a diverse workforce and community. By offering the Taiwan citizen card to residents, workers, and business owners, users are able to access facilities and public services (transportation, shops, personal identification), and serves as an electronic payment card for everyday use.

Taoyuan’s goal is to increase accessibility and replicability of best practices of smart-city initiatives to further strengthen growth and development together with the international community. CALD worked together with Taoyuan to present a video featuring its smart-city plans.

Lumajang, Indonesia

Progressive policies can produce results and empower communities despite the distance. This is how Regent Thoriq ul Haq addresses the issues of safety, traffic jam, education, health, infrastructure, environment management, disaster, and poverty in Lumajang in East Java province. Indeed, the local chief executive realized early that poverty, one of the priority issues there, can be addressed by improving the quality of education and health, increasing investment, and reducing the unemployment rate.

In cooperation with CALD, Lumajang worked on the Manpower Management Information System to help the regency build a database of jobseekers, employers, businesses, and geographical locations; improve labor distribution supervision; expand access to information; and aid officials in crafting appropriate policies based on data gathered. In this manner, the public can access information on jobs and training while the local government increases opportunities and the protection of workers and citizens.

Banyuwangi, Indonesia

Providing direct solutions to the concerns of villagers is crucial but not always easy to do. Yet the Banyuwangi Regency, which lies on the eastern tip of Java, was able to address more than 5,000 problems on MSMEs, education, licensing, infrastructure, and health, among others, according to Budi Santoso, head of the regency’s Communications, Informatics, and Encryption Department.

Through Banyuwangi’s Smart Kampung program, the technology addresses the issues of distance and time of public service delivery from the center of government to all villages. “The distance from the farthest village to Banyuwangi city is about 200 km, which is a travel time of approximately three hours,” Santoso noted.

CALD worked on a video with Banyuwangi to continue to promote Smart Kampung to all villages and encourage the people to utilize and maximize its potential.

“CALD, as a regional alliance of free and democratic parties in Asia, has always been committed to providing members and partners with a development platform for smart and sustainable urban dialogue and cooperation”, said DPP spokesperson Peifen Hsieh.

DPP’s International Department, she added, remains committed to promoting more smart-city development cooperation among local governments under CALD member-parties, in line with CALD’s goal of building inclusive, empowering, and technology-oriented cities of the future.