{"id":142736,"date":"2021-09-08T11:43:43","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T11:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sap.com\/africa\/?p=142736"},"modified":"2023-09-27T18:08:50","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T18:08:50","slug":"can-data-drive-the-success-of-sas-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.sap.com\/africa\/2021\/09\/can-data-drive-the-success-of-sas-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Data Drive the Success of SA’s Cities?"},"content":{"rendered":"
If data is the new gold or oil, how well are South African cities doing in using this precious resource to drive development and improve the delivery of services to citizens?<\/p>\n
Globally, local and national governments continue to gain access to ever more powerful technologies for collecting, storing, processing and applying data.<\/p>\n
As cities improve their capacity for collecting and analysing data, and continue to gather more of it, an opportunity for open collaboration emerges. Many of the risks we face – rapid urbanisation, the impacts of climate change, effective management of scarce resources such as water – are shared among South Africa\u2019s cities.<\/p>\n
Leveraging shared data and analytics could help identify risks more quickly, drive the development of solutions to common challenges and greatly improve the delivery of services to citizens, thereby fostering trust and building greater social cohesion.<\/p>\n
With the volume of operational and experience data growing at a rapid pace, cities could \u2013 with the correct investment into intelligent technologies \u2013 seamlessly merge data sets to produce real-time insights that can guide decision-making at every step of the citizen journey.<\/p>\n
In a recent UN e-government study, South Africa was ranked third in Africa<\/a> in the e-government development index, an indicator of digital government services maturity. This put the country in the top 100 countries worldwide and above the global average, although still well behind countries in Europe, North America and Asia.<\/p>\n