The City of Cape Town has unveiled a new strategy aimed at transforming the municipality into a data-driven entity, designed to improve service delivery and increase transparency.
During the launch event held in Woodstock on Monday, Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis outlined the city’s commitment to leveraging data for better management of public services and infrastructure.
“Our goal is to embed the intelligent use of data into every aspect of what we do,” Hill-Lewis said. “We are now tracking our water, sanitation, and energy infrastructure digitally, which allows us to monitor performance and deploy rapid response teams when necessary.”
The strategy focusses on integrating advanced technologies like internet-of-things (IoT) devices, sensors, and large-scale data analytics to gather real-time information. This approach is expected to optimise resource allocation and improve decision-making within the city.
Hill-Lewis highlighted the success of global cities like New York and Barcelona, where data-driven systems have been used to manage various urban challenges, such as predicting fires, reducing crime, managing traffic, and monitoring air quality.
Cape Town aims to follow in their footsteps by using data to better plan and monitor services.
A core element of the city’s approach is openness, with Hill-Lewis emphasising that much of the data collected will be made publicly available.
“We want the public to have access to this wealth of data so that they can better understand and engage with how the city is run,” he said.
The city has appointed Hugh Cole, its strategy director, as chief data officer.
Cole’s immediate focus will be setting up robust data governance frameworks and overseeing the Core Application Review project, which aims to modernise the city’s IT systems.
He also pointed to ongoing collaborations, such as partnerships with the national Treasury, South African Revenue Service, and World Bank, to develop spatial economic models that assess the impact of infrastructure and land use decisions across the metro.
The city’s adoption of advanced tools, such as geographic information systems and machine learning platforms like PyTorch, underscores its commitment to becoming a data-led municipality. Hill-Lewis expressed optimism about the strategy’s potential, calling it “an important stepping stone towards a truly evidence-led government.”
