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PPPs for Smart and Sustainable Cities - New Specialist Centre in Barcelona

Barcelona will host the International Specialist Centre on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Smart and Sustainable Cities, as part of the UNECE International PPP Centre of Excellence. UNECE and IESE Business School – one of the leading business schools in Europe – signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 25 February to establish the Centre.


The Centre will be formally launched on 19 November 2015 at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona. Its main objective will be to collect international PPP best practices and models, and contribute to the development of UNECE standards for PPPs on smart and sustainable cities.  This will contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Among other activities, the Centre will provide training programmes to public officials from cities with different socio-economic backgrounds with the aim of replicating Barcelona’s successful experiences in PPPs.


Barcelona is a living example of the transformational role that long-term, strategic and sustainable public-private partnerships can play in modern urban planning. Various PPP initiatives in the build-up to the 1992 Olympic Games transformed whole neighbourhoods, abandoned buildings and underutilised industrial areas into fashionable and modern districts. More recently, PPP projects in the city have aimed at integrating its vast communications networks: public wifi, urban mobility, traffic control and bike share through smart phone technology.

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United Nations Economic Commission for Europe

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