Agence Française de Développement (AFD) launched their programme to fund Smart City projects through a challenge process by making available Euro 100 million to finance 30- 80 selected projects.
The objective is to promote sustainability, innovation and participatory approaches in the Smart Cities.
AFD is France’s inclusive public development bank and it commits financing and technical assistance to projects that genuinely improve everyday life, both in developing and emerging countries and in the French overseas provinces.
In keeping with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, AFD works in many sectors — energy, healthcare, biodiversity, water, digital technology, professional training, among others — to assist with transitions towards a safer, more equitable, and more sustainable world.
The announcement was made during First Apex Conference for Smart City CEOs held at Bhopal. During the event, the Bhopal Smart City also launched a cloud-based Common Integrated Data Centre, Disaster Recovery Centre and Integrated Control and Command Centre (ICCC). This will help to monitor and administer several utilities and citizen services across seven cities in the state: Bhopal, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Indore, Ujjain, Satna, and Sagar. An incubation centre, to promote entrepreneurial spirit amongst youth, researchers, engineers and society at large, was also launched.
The conference emphasized on cross learning amongst the Smart City CEOs to accelerate progress of the Smart City Mission projects. The two-day conference provided a unique platform for the city leaders and various stakeholders in the Smart Cities Mission for convergence of ideas and sharing of best practices which will enable other’s to fast track their Smart city projects.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.