Türkiye’s National Smart Cities Strategy and Action Plan: Embedding Inclusion in Public Services

This article is part of the 2025 Report: GovCX Trailblazers Case Studies, published by the International Foundation for Customer Experience in Government. The report aims to advance the global dialogue on Customer Experience (CX) in the public sector by highlighting innovative practices from around the world and setting benchmarks to help governments strengthen their CX initiatives.

Gülin Dizer, currently serving in Enterprise Architecture & Solution Planning at TÜBİTAK BİLGEM YTE, and formerly an Expert at the Digital Transformation Office of the Presidency of Türkiye, has been a key contributor to the country’s digital government agenda. Before joining the Digital Transformation Office, she spent over six years at TÜBİTAK BİLGEM YTE as a Digital Transformation Expert and Business Analyst (2016–2022), shaping national projects in digital transformation and strategic service design. Across these roles, she has championed accessibility, empathy, and equity as foundational principles of public service delivery.

In this article, Gülin Dizer reflects on her work on Türkiye’s first National Smart Cities Strategy and Action Plan, which began during her time at TÜBİTAK, where she played an active role in shaping actions focused on inclusive service design and user-centered digital solutions.

This initiative was a strategic transformation effort carried out as part of Türkiye’s first National Smart Cities Strategy and Action Plan (2020–2023). It aimed to promote a user-centric, inclusive, and participatory approach to urban service delivery—“moving beyond technology to address equity and accessibility.”

Developed in collaboration with public institutions, municipalities, academia, and civil society actors, it represented a nationwide effort to rethink how urban services are designed and delivered.

Through key Actions 12, 20, 21, and 25, the strategy created a clear roadmap for municipalities and public institutions seeking to redesign services with a strong citizen experience (CX) focus:

• Action 12 emphasized transitioning from fragmented service models to integrated and seamless service structures.
• Actions 20 and 21 focused on diversifying physical and digital service and communication channels.
• Action 25 introduced tools such as surveys, user panels, and open data platforms to promote citizen engagement.

as Gülin noted: “Personas, user journey mapping, and continuous feedback loops were core design components of this approach.”

These principles were published as national guidance and have already begun to inspire pilot implementations in several cities.

The strategy underscored that smart city solutions must “go beyond technological innovation to address equity and social cohesion.”

It aimed to ensure that all citizens—including disadvantaged groups and persons with disabilities—“could access and benefit equally from smart urban services.”

This marked a significant step toward embedding inclusiveness in public service design across different layers of government.

One of the strategy’s most important achievements was the introduction of a consistent national language around user-centricity, inclusiveness, and citizen participation. These concepts were explicitly integrated into policy and translated into actionable steps.

Through Actions 12, 20, 21, and 25, the strategy gave municipalities a practical roadmap to redesign services around real user needs. It reinforced the use of personas, user journey mapping, and multichannel service delivery models as standard design tools.

Collectively, these actions enhanced the citizen experience by supporting more inclusive, responsive, and connectedurban service ecosystems.

Despite its strengths, the initiative faced predictable challenges.

A major issue was the perception that smart cities are solely about technological advancement. As Gülin emphasized:

“It took time to communicate that inclusiveness, participation, and user experience are essential components of smart service delivery.”

Local governments also varied widely in their digital maturity, making it difficult to implement persona-based design or multichannel delivery consistently. Participatory planning methods were unfamiliar to many institutions.

A striking moment occurred during a focus group on smart mobility, when a municipal staff member remarked:

“There’s usually someone at the stop—they can just ask which bus’s coming.”

This reflected a mindset where citizens must adapt to the system, rather than the system adapting to diverse citizen needs.

As Gülin concluded:

“Inclusive and user-centric public service design requires not only technical capacity but also a cultural shift grounded in empathy and awareness.”

This initiative demonstrated that digital transformation in the public sector must go beyond technology. It must embrace user-centeredness, inclusiveness, and participation as foundational principles.

Empathy-driven design tools—such as persona development, journey mapping, and feedback loops; support institutions in moving away from one-size-fits-all approaches toward responsive, human-centered service delivery.

It also highlighted that cultural transformation is just as important as digital infrastructure and raising awareness about inclusive design among public officials is essential for lasting change.

When viewed through the lens of the International Model for Customer Experience in Government, Türkiye’s National Smart Cities Strategy and Action Plan illustrates how strategic vision, inclusiveness, and human-centric design can reshape public service delivery at scale.

It brings Direction to life by establishing a national vision that prioritizes user-centricity, inclusiveness, and participation—ensuring that public service transformation addresses equity and social cohesion, not only efficiency.
Through Design, the strategy operationalized these values through concrete actions—particularly Actions 12, 20, 21, and 25. These actions focused on diversifying digital and physical service delivery channels, personalizing communication methods, integrating fragmented services for holistic experiences, and creating participatory mechanisms such as surveys and user panels. Action 25, in particular, emphasized involving citizens directly in service improvement processes, reflecting a deep commitment to inclusive and user-driven design.

Overall, the initiative contributed to a broader shift in public service thinking—redefining not only how services are delivered, but also whose needs they prioritize, and how empathy and inclusion are embedded into service processes across different layers of government.