This article was written by Rose Tuyeni Peter and Doubell Chamberlain. The original article was published by Cenfri. You can find the article here. 

2025 is a pivotal year in global development, as we are only five years away from the current deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With slowing economic growth and other macroeconomic challenges putting pressure on already declining development aid, exacerbated by the recent steps by the US government to pause and revaluate development aid, we are unlikely to achieve the SDGs before the 2030 deadline.

Despite this prognosis, one of the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic was the importance of digital infrastructure, and the services they enable, in enhancing the resilience of societies to navigate and recover from such catastrophic shocks. Whether it was enabling disease surveillance, online learning and working, or accessing public or private services, societies with more advanced digital public infrastructure faired and recovered better.

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is a relatively new framework for thinking about digital transformation and refers to a network of shared digital systems and platforms that enable the delivery of public services. These digital systems and platforms are to the digital world what roads, railways, and airports are to the physical world.

Much of Cenfri’s work has not (yet) been framed in “DPI language”, however our portfolio cuts across the core DPI components of data exchange, identity and payments. We typically consider issues across the domains of regulation, market systems and people’s needs and behaviours and some of the issues raised are worth reflecting on when considering DPI deployments.

How can we develop DPIs that are applicable to the local context?

Africa is a diverse continent with varying degrees of digital inclusion and infrastructure development. DPI implementation needs to be driven by viable use cases to be sustainable and the viability of these use cases will vary based on user needs and levels of digital inclusion. Without an appropriate use case, DPI implementation will struggle to achieve scale and sustainability.

In our work with AfricaNenda on their SIIPS reports, we found that although there has been steady year-on-year growth in the deployment of retail Instant Payment Systems (IPS) across Africa, there is significant variation in the maturity of instant payment systems and a wide variety of use cases for IPS between countries and across individual and MSME users.

To build IPS that scale and are sustainable, an understanding of local needs and preferences is required, as is addressing issues of interoperability, which are also a major hurdle. Even though standardised approaches may emerge and, in some cases, be desirable, a diagnostic approach will still be needed to empower domestic stakeholders with an understanding of the needs of users, and the factors that may impact adoption. This approach could inform the change management and communication required for the vast changes implied by DPI.

How can standardisation help us build on what already exists?

An important part of understanding the local context is understanding what systems already exist and how these systems can be leveraged to implement DPI. A research study we carried out to understand the biometric identity journeys of countries in sub-Saharan Africa demonstrates the importance, and viability, of leveraging the systems that are already in place.

The key finding of this study is that implementing biometric identity systems does not necessarily mean that one must do away with legacy systems and start from scratch. It can be more efficient to make other ID databases, including biometric ones, interoperable with these legacy systems at the source code level. This would allow new ID projects to benefit from the existing data and removes the need for citizens to go through another potentially onerous registration process.

This aligns well with the inclusive DPI design principles of building on open standards and specifications that enable interoperability. This is relevant not only between new and legacy systems, but also allows public and private sector service providers to leverage these systems to develop new applications on top of them.

Building on open standards also allows countries drawing on existing digital public goods (DPGs) to build or adapt their DPIs in more modular ways that can be customised to their unique needs, thus making them more likely to achieve scale and be sustainable.

More than scale benefits through standardisation, the global nature of DPI also requires a high degree of alignment to ensure interoperability and avoid fragmentation across different jurisdictions. This need for alignment, on the face of it, may be contrary to customisation. While there are benefits to standardisation and alignment, the use-case approach may at least allow countries to tailor implementation focus and resources to domestic priorities.

How can we embed change management processes that intentionally facilitate buy-in and build trust?

Kenya’s (currently paused) Maisha Namba DID project was heralded as an important step on Kenya’s DPI journey but now serves as a cautionary tale. A recent report by the Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI), Citizen Experiences with DPI: Kenya’s Digital ID Transition, showed that lack of transparency and accountability throughout the Maisha Namba project undermined citizen’s trust in the initiative. The CFI report makes for eye-opening reading. It shows how a lack of transparency on the motivations for (and the procurement of) DPI implementations, especially those that seek to replace existing systems without clear marginal benefit, can lead to mistrust in these systems, resulting in low uptake, utilisation and impact of these services.

Richard Pope’s Platformland (capturing lessons from the UK and other leading jurisdictions’ DPI journeys) presents a compelling perspective on the potential and necessity of DPI to reinvent the relationship between government and citizens. Perhaps surprising for a book on the technicalities of DPI, the author argues that shame (and its counterpart dignity), empathy, trust, relationships and power play a key role in the vision for reinventing public services through digitalisation.

The success of DPI implementations lies in the trust that end users have in these systems – without trust there will be no utilisation and ultimately no impact. Creating the required buy-in and implementing change management processes is crucial to the sustainability of these initiatives and should not be treated as an afterthought.

How can we move slower and fix things?

Somewhat counter to the infamous Silicon Valley adage “move fast and break things”, we see more evidence pointing to the need for patience and deliberate action in building sustainable infrastructure, including digital infrastructure. This does not mean that building DPI should take a long time, but rushed implementation that does not accommodate the local context, existing systems and trust building is unlikely to succeed in the long run. It will likely also create substantial risks, such as security vulnerabilities, data breaches, and erosion of public trust, ultimately hindering adoption and undermining the potential benefits of DPI.

This speaks to the heart of the work we did with Smart Africa and the Hewlett Foundation on the feasibility of inclusive open finance in Rwanda and Zambia. Open finance is an iteration of a data exchange for the financial sector and many of the lessons on open finance implementation can be applied to the deployment of other DPIs. Below the decision tree we developed to assess the feasibility of implementing open finance but adapted for DPI deployments.

This framework allows for the considered implementation of DPI in a manner that takes into account the need that is being addressed, potential use cases, enabling regulation (or lack thereof), the capacity to implement, the benefit (and risk) to the end user and the digital economy as a whole. This considered approach, coupled with stakeholder consultations and trust building, is important to the sustainable implementation of open finance or any other DPI.

Conclusion

Digital Public Infrastructure potentially represents a transformative framework for achieving inclusive digital transformation. By addressing local contexts, leveraging existing systems, building trust, and adopting a deliberate approach, it is possible DPI can deliver scalable services and increase social and economic opportunities for all.

Critics may argue that DPI is simply a rebranding of existing efforts in digital transformation, such as digital identity, IPS, and data exchange. While there is some truth to this, DPI’s emphasis on interoperability, open standards, and whole-of-government thinking makes it a powerful organising framework. It moves beyond sectoral silos to deliver integrated, digitally enabled services at a societal scale.

More than just upgrading our technology infrastructure, DPI holds the potential for the reinvention of welfare-enhancing public services in a digital era. Realising the potential of DPI requires more than technological advancements – it demands a shift in mindset, embracing collaboration and inclusivity to ensure that digital transformation leaves no one behind.