The Digital Public Infrastructure approach to digital transformation has emerged as a powerful alternative for accelerating a country’s progress toward its development goals. It is estimated that countries increasingly employ this approach to provide their citizens with the foundational capabilities to participate in an increasingly digital world. Evidence points to at least 46 identity systems, 38 payment systems and 46 data exchanges in the Global South alone, exhibiting one or more DPI attributes (DPI Map v1, 2024). However, there is growing consensus that effective governance is critical for ensuring that implementing these systems contributes to more safe and inclusive societies.
Policymakers, implementers, and public interest actors face a myriad of emergent and, often, interconnected policy and operational challenges at each stage of a DPI project’s implementation. Attempts to curtail leakage in social programmes using digital ID systems have also led to decreased agency among vulnerable communities when existing identification options were discontinued. Digital payment systems, which have made the digital exchange of money instantaneous and convenient, have also exposed their users to fraud and cyber risks. While some of these challenges may involve leveraging tested technical best practices, addressing the other challenges involves speaking to the socio-political contexts in which these risks lie.
Program
This program equips participants with thinking about risks and trade-offs associated with issues related to the governance of DPI. At the moment, these topics are delivered through targeted workshops and training exercises. Participants are guided through exercises that stimulate policy design decisions while designing and deploying DPI in their context.