The "Smart City" (SC) concept has been around for decades with deployment scenarios revealed in major cities of developed countries. However, while SC has enhanced the living conditions of city dwellers in the developed world, the concept is still either missing or poorly deployed in the developing world. This paper presents a review of the SC concept from the perspective of its application to cities in developing nations, the opportunities it avails, and challenges related to its applicability to these cities. Building upon a systematic review of literature, this paper shows that there are neither canonical definitions, models or frameworks of references for the SC concept. This paper also aims to bridge the gap between the "smart city" and "smart village" concepts, with the expectation of providing a holistic approach to solving common issues in cities around the world. Drawing inspiration from other authors, we propose a conceptual model for a SC initiative in Africa and demonstrate the need to prioritize research and capacity development. We also discuss the potential opportunities for such SC implementations in sub-Saharan Africa. As a case study, we consider the city of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo and discuss ways of making it a smart city by building around successful smart city initiatives. It is our belief that for Lubumbashi, as with any other city in Sub-Saharan Africa, the first step to developing a smart city is to build knowledge and create an intellectual capital.

翻译：“智慧城市”（SC）概念已提出数十年，并在发达国家的各大城市中展示了部署场景。然而，尽管智慧城市改善了发达国家城市居民的生活条件，这一概念在发展中国家要么尚未出现，要么部署不力。本文从智慧城市概念在发展中国家城市中的应用视角出发，对其进行了综述，探讨了其带来的机遇以及相关挑战。基于系统的文献回顾，本文表明智慧城市概念既没有规范的定义，也没有参考模型或框架。本文还旨在弥合“智慧城市”与“智慧乡村”概念之间的差距，期望为全球城市的共性问题提供整体解决方案。借鉴其他学者的观点，我们提出了非洲智慧城市倡议的概念模型，并论证了优先开展研究与能力建设的必要性。我们还讨论了在撒哈拉以南非洲地区实施此类智慧城市的潜在机遇。作为案例研究，我们考察了刚果民主共和国的卢本巴希市，探讨如何围绕已有的成功智慧城市倡议，将其建设成为智慧城市。我们相信，对于卢本巴希乃至撒哈拉以南非洲的任何城市而言，发展智慧城市的第一步是积累知识、创造智力资本。