; (3) barriers to creative financing solutions for those activities and projects, including procurement barriers faced by State and local governments; and (4) ways to leverage private sector investments in smart cities and communities. 7. Standards and interoperability framework (a) Participation To strengthen the public-private partnership approach to smart city- or community-related standards development and interoperability, the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology shall strongly encourage and support participation by Federal Government experts in private sector-led standards-related activities that convene smart city or community stakeholders, including representatives of applicable Federal agencies. (b) Activities To promote innovation and economic competitiveness and to achieve interoperability of smart city or community devices and systems, while strengthening the United States approach to private sector-led standardization activities and the participation of Federal representatives under subsection (a), the Director, in consultation with private and public sector stakeholders, shall— (1) survey and review domestic and international smart city or community performance standards, existing architectures, applications, and deployments, and interoperability standards; (2) make consensus-based recommendations— (A) to identify gaps in the smart city or community performance standards and interoperability standards under paragraph (1); (B) to harmonize existing standards and deployment efforts and enable greater interoperability across smart city or community technologies; (C) to coordinate domestic and international performance standards and interoperability standards to promote uniform performance standards and interoperability standards worldwide, including with respect to the need for testing and demonstration; and (D) for guidelines to enable interoperability in the collection, storage, ownership, and sharing of data