Foundations for a fairer digital future

CV Madhukar

Countries around the world are taking to digital solutions at an unprecedented pace. While there seems to be an inevitability to digitisation, countries still have the choice of deciding how to digitise. The recent launch of the 50-in-5 campaign (https://50in5.net/) is a renewed commitment to supporting countries to consider options as they accelerate their digitisation efforts.

Let us look at some recent history. When Western economies began their digitisation efforts about four decades ago, the approach was to digitise one specific business process, and then another, and so on. Then as the benefits of digitisation became obvious, and more funding became available, entire agencies began to digitise. This evolutionary approach naturally resulted in a very siloed approach to digitisation.

But when countries that have not gone too far along this siloed digitisation approach choose to digitise, can they take a different approach to shaping their digital futures?

The idea of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) as a way to imagine the foundations for a digital economy has been evolving in recent years. At its core, the idea is simple: What are the layers of shared infrastructure that can enable innovative solutions to be built on top, both by the government and the private sector?

This idea of having shared infrastructure as the backbone of the economy is not new either in the brick-and-mortar economy or in the digital economy. Historically, shared public infrastructure such as roads, electricity, telephony have powered government services and private economic activity around the world. In this ‘physical’ world for any exchange of value, it was easy to identify a person one was engaging with and exchange value (cash/ goods) in real time using cash.

In the digital world, we need some key layers of infrastructure that can enable transactions/ transfer of value between two parties who may never physically meet. We need to be able to connect digitally with each other; we may need to know where the person is located. The two “original DPI” layers -- the internet and GPS -- have emerged as core elements that answered these two questions. The internet connects devices to enable interaction remotely. The GPS answers the question, ‘where are you?’ These DPI layers were publicly funded by the US government and built in the 20th century.

To realise the full power of a digital economy and enable seamless exchange of value between people and private or government entities, a few more questions become critically important: ‘who are you?’ – enabled by digital ID which can be used to authenticate oneself (especially for high integrity/ high value transactions), ‘how do I transfer cash to you?’ – enabled by interoperable instant payment systems, and ‘how do I share my credentials to you in a non-repudiable manner’ – enabled by digitally signed verifiable credentials.  This is an indicative list, but hopefully makes the case for shared public infrastructure obvious.

There are several nuances in the DPI discussions that often lead to different interpretations of what this journey should look like. One idea that different people understand differently, is the word ‘public’, in DPI. As we know from the existing layers of infrastructure, public does not necessarily imply that the government has to own and/ or control it. Infrastructure layers such as electricity, telephony, the internet are all public infrastructure that are not owned and controlled by the government.

But governments in many countries around the world seldom have the time to think about the power of infrastructure layers that can dramatically improve service provision to people. Understandably, they are focused on providing immediate digital solutions to people. This is where stakeholders providing digital solutions have an opportunity to help develop approaches that can help build re-usable and shared technology layers – layers that can be leveraged by the government and enable private economic activity. Just like in the case of roads, electricity or the internet.

Working through these nuances and developing a shared approach to DPI can help us collectively to shape a digital future that is inclusive, safe and equitable. This is essence of what we need in order to create the foundations for a fairer digital future for all.