Ongoing public debate over xenophobic attacks in South Africa and headlines of the terrorist attack on Garissa University College in Kenya has put the issue of public safety firmly on the agendas of governments on the continent. Now decision makers are turning attention to the potential of collaborative Information Communications Technology to enhance existing infrastructure to uphold public safety across Africa.

Speaking at the inaugural Huawei Safe City Africa Summit held recently in Cape Town, Rose Moyo, wireless solutions director at Huawei's Enterprise Business Group's Eastern and Southern Africa region, acknowledged that various incidents of late that have impacted on public safety has helped to make the issue front-of-mind for authorities and business.

"We regard public safety as an ongoing process... it is a human right to be safe. It is all about how do we respond better, how does a city enable us to respond better to incidents," said Moyo.

One of the key themes of the event was the link between the rate of urbanisation in Africa , the emergence of megacities and the escalation in security threats as expansion takes hold.

According to Frost & Sullivan 50% of the world's population lives in cities and 70% of the global population is expected to live in urban environments by 2050. Furthermore, 50% of the top 20 megacities in 2025 will be from developing countries.

Huawei claims that at current rates of expansion, the UN estimates that Africa will cease to be predominantly rural by 2030.

The company is actively engaging regions across Africa on the adoption of the Safe City concept, based on the use of a consolidated IT platform which converges public safety information (sourced through various channels including video surveillance, access control and other ID technologies) with multi-agency collaboration between emergency services, road & traffic agencies and law enforcement authorities.

"It combines the security, safety and operational aspects of a 'smart city'," claims the Chinese telecommunications firm.

Several countries have started to implement Safe City solutions, including Algeria, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Angola.

Moyo is confident that the concept and technology involved can work for Africa because it is a customised offering "shaped around end-user requirements" and is not based on a 'one-size-fits-all' approach.

"When we discuss eLTE for example, Africa communications is mainly mobile based and when you look at public safety, mobile is inherent in public safety..."

In addition to technology adoption by stakeholders, as well as changing regulation, legal and technical standards, securing cooperation of civic partners has been identified as a challenge to the successful integration of a safe city solution.

While the process may take some time between concept delivery and implementation, particularly that which involves collaboration between public entities, Moyo says it is important to take it step-by-step, consider issues like skills and requirements, rather than focusing entirely on immediate technology integration.