Advancing sustainable urbanization through timely data generation from official statistics, geospatial and big data analytics

Cities and urban areas play a central role in fostering sustainable development and improved quality of life. However, majority of them suffer from an acute shortage of accurate, timely, and useful information which limit their capacities to develop sound and informed policies. Rapid transformations in data technologies in the recent years have opened the doors for accelerated urban data generation, creating an enabling environment for urban monitoring, reporting, and informing actions toward sustainable urban development.
Urban development actors from public and private sectors have been collaborating in the development of data tools that enable urban monitoring based on standardized indicator frameworks, application of geospatial and AI technologies, and systems of urban data management such as the Urban Observatory Model.
A central tool in urban monitoring is the Global Urban Monitoring Framework (UMF), a framework that allows regions and cities to collect data on their performance across urban performance domains, and acts as a practical framework for the formulation, implementation, and monitoring of policies and practices on sustainable development for increased urban prosperity. The indicator framework support comprehensive urban monitoring, enabling city diagnosis for informing action. At the thematic and indictor level, the advancement of cutting-edge tools in AI and geo-information technologies are offering new potential for satellite data utilization, exploration of big data for trends analysis, and precision in policy decision, including through application of generative AI.
The proposed session will provide a platform for an in-depth discussion on the UMF implementation, new data generation opportunities that have traditionally been overlooked, urban data management tools and platforms such as the Urban Observatory Model, and their linkages to monitoring, reporting, and realization of the SDGs. The connection of these new methods to official statistics will also be discussed. The session will bring together cities, statistical offices and agencies, and urban development partners in the field of urban data to share their experiences in urban data analytics, access, utilization and associated experiences, opportunities, and challenges.
The participants will share and gain knowledge on the opportunities provided by both official statistics and emerging technologies for cost effective data generation and linking data to action, including the UMF, earth observation and geospatial analysis, big data mining, the urban observatory model among others.