The "International Conference on African Cities (CIVA) - Digital Cities" is the first annual international expert discussion and exchange forum on African cities that will take place from 21 to 23 March 2023 in the city of Cotonou, Benin. The ultimate goal of the CIVA conference is to increase the scope and influence of research and entrepreneurial innovation activities on the African continent related to the digitalisation of cities. The 2023 edition focuses on the African digital city as a potential solution to Africa's urban challenges. The CIVA 2023 conference covers all topics related to digital cities in Africa, including work associated with the transition to digital cities and urban planning, African smart cities, Smart geo-information systems (Smart GIS), smart governance, digital city challenges in Africa, urban sustainability, planning/management issues in emerging cities in Africa, urban socio-economic challenges (education, health, employment, youth, economy, food security, etc.), urban environment, and information and communication technologies applied to the urban.  Beyond its thematic focus, it aims to advance interdisciplinary research by bridging the disciplinary gap between the different academic cultures of the humanities, sciences and application-oriented research, but also the sectoral gap between urban development actors in Africa.

CIVA 2023 will promote scientific excellence in Africa through the communication and publication of and publication of the best research results and works written in original scientific articles in its conference proceedings, its book proceedings and its special issues which follow:

• All accepted and presented conference papers will be eligible for publication in our E3S web of conference proceedings indexed in Scopus, Scimago, IET INSPEC, Ei Compendex, EBSCO, Google Scholar, CPCI (Web of Science) (Subject to acceptance - as for all proceedings journals)

• A category of best papers will be published in our proceedings book by Springer book GeoJournal Library (Pending confirmation) indexed in Scopus, Scimago, IET INSPEC, Ei Compendex, EBSCO, Google Scholar, CPCI (Web of Science) (Subject to acceptance - as for all proceedings journals)

• High-quality papers may be invited to be submitted to one of our special issues in the following list depending on the theme of the paper and its ranking in the order of quality. The authors of the selected papers will be invited after the conclusion of the conference steering committee and their papers extended according to the percentage required by the special issue will be subjected to a normal submission and review process.