The Program is designed to help cities by providing a framework to facilitate consistent and comparative collection of city indicators. It provides a free, easy to understand database for cities to regularly collect, input, report and monitor city indicators. Membership enables cities to be part of a global group of cities that have adopted a standardized set of city data that allows each member city to draw comparability across cities globally. Nine pilot cities have developed and tested a set of core indicators over the past few years.

The Global City Indicators Facility has been established at the University of Toronto and the Facility is now moving the Program forward from its pilot phase and inviting new member cities to join the Program via its website.