The United Nations University - Operating Unit on Policy-driven Electronic Governance (UNU-EGOV) co-organized an expert-led session titled “FAIR Cities: Foster AI for Inclusive and Responsible Cities” at the WSIS+20 High-Level Event 2025, held in Geneva, Switzerland, on 8 July 2025.
Moderated by Soumaya Ben Dhaou, UNU-EGOV Research Specialist and coordinator of the Research Line on Digital Transformation, Innovation and Emerging Technologies, the session brought together distinguished speakers from the UN system, academia, and city-level digital governance initiatives to explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be responsibly and inclusively integrated into urban development.
The workshop, co-organized with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and under the United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiative, builds on the findings of the Global Assessment of Responsible Cities, a recent UNU-EGOV research project in partnership with UN-HABITAT. It formed part of the broader FAIR Cities initiative, which Ben Dhaou currently leads within U4SSC.
Speakers included Tshilidzi Marwala, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Rector of the United Nations University (remote), Amandeep Singh Gill, UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology, Okan Geray, Strategic Planning Advisor at Digital Dubai and Chair of U4SSC, Shazade Jameson, Project Officer in the Ethics of AI Unit at UNESCO and Serge Stinckwich, Head of Research at UNU Macau.
Throughout the session, participants tackled three guiding questions that framed the discussion: how cities can align AI initiatives with local priorities while ensuring sustainability, responsibility, and inclusion; what critical gaps exist between current urban capacities and the requirements for inclusive and responsible AI governance and implementation; and which tools and approaches can help assess and bridge these gaps to support the ethical, inclusive, and effective adoption of AI in urban contexts.
The debate reaffirmed the urgent need for policy frameworks and capacity-building to ensure that AI contributes meaningfully to sustainable urban development, without deepening existing inequalities or creating new barriers. Several panellists highlighted the importance of gender-sensitive, human-centric design and the role of inclusive governance in guiding the digital transformation of cities.
This interactive session further reinforced UNU-EGOV’s commitment to advancing digital governance strategies that prioritize sustainability, inclusion, and responsible innovation. It also marked a strategic contribution to global conversations on the future of cities in the digital age, positioning the FAIR Cities initiative as a key instrument for supporting evidence-based, ethical, and inclusive urban AI deployment.
