Renewed focus on digital public infrastructure: From vision to trusted delivery

By Dr Jannie Zaaiman

For years, governments and donors have launched thousands of apps tackling challenges ranging from healthcare to agriculture and school attendance.

Well intentioned individually, they operate independently and in isolation – from one another, cut out from broader communities, and without considering socioeconomic realities such as connectivity.

Then they usually disappear when funding ends.

Projects that could deliver far greater benefits if they shared identities, payment systems and data never progress beyond the test phase.

This is ‘pilotitis’.

These characteristics, coupled with the fact that many disappear when funding ends, have given rise to the term “pilotitis”.

Such projects could deliver far greater benefits across the continent if they shared identities, payment systems and data, yet too often they never progress beyond the test phase.

This is why the conversation around Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is so important.

Essentially the digital equivalent of roads and bridges connecting cities and markets, DPI can be the backbone that connects identities to e-services such as social grants, bank accounts, and school enrolment – helping enable society-wide development

DPI should sit at the center of digital service delivery, particularly for a continent marked by deep inequality, but only if it is implemented correctly.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s position as a global leader in mobile money, and a 58 percent adult account ownership rate – up from 49 percent in 2021, according to the World Bank’s Global Findex Database 2025 – positions it well to benefit from interoperable payments, government-to-person transfers and small-business finance.

Yet challenges persist, such as connectivity gaps, affordability, fragmented civil registration, limited digital literacy and uneven institutional capacity, which means that DPI must reflect local realities.

A system that works only for smartphone users with reliable connectivity, ignoring the need for offline and low-tech verification environments, cannot be considered true public infrastructure.

Within a safe ecosystem

Just as DPI can provide for digital inclusion, it can also be exclusionary.

Identity systems can disregard informal workers, older adults, people with disabilities, people without smartphones, people in remote areas and those who experience biometric capture or authentication failures – eliminating access to services meant to be available to all.

Centralized data systems raise separate concerns.

When oversight, data protection and redress mechanisms are weak, they can become instruments of surveillance and misuse rather than public benefit.

These are potential design flaws and, as a result, safeguards must be implemented from the design phase.

The UN’s Universal DPI Safeguards Framework and the World Bank’s Identification for Development principles together emphasize inclusion, transparency, accountability, privacy by design, independent oversight and grievance redress, and these should be designing anchors for any DPI implementation.

These overlapping governance frameworks should anchor any DPI implementation – because digital transformation isn’t the volume of digital services launched, but the strength, trustworthiness and reusability of the foundations on which those services depend.

This is why payment solutions require regulatory rules that balance innovation, competition, consumer protection, financial integrity and system stability.

Likewise, data exchange requires secure APIs, metadata standards, registries, audit logs and middleware that allow systems to communicate reliably.

Countries must deliberately choose architecture, whether central registries, federated identifiers or verifiable credentials, based on context, risk, institutional capacity and – very importantly – public trust. Without that assurance, the infrastructure won’t achieve its intended purpose of empowering citizens.

Centralized systems may simplify integration but increase concentration-of-risk; federated or decentralized approaches can better protect privacy but require stronger standards and coordination.

Sustainable and empowering

To avoid the trap of parotitis – apart from ensuring that projects are of countrywide-benefit – sustained funding is needed; not donor-dependent once-off projects.

Governments need predictable budgets, clear ownership arrangements, public-sector capacity and long-term maintenance plans. This includes investment in cybersecurity, help desks, system upgrades, data governance teams, public communication and independent oversight.

Public-private partnerships are one source of funding that can accelerate implementation but they must be carefully structured. Government must retain control over policy, standards and accountability, with procurement favouring open standards, modularity and portability to avoid vendor lock-in.

GovStack provides useful guidance on modular digital government building blocks, while the OECD emphasises governance, funding, privacy, security and public-private collaboration as the pillars of sound DPI implementation.

Operational accountability requires governments to track coverage, authentication rates, transaction costs, uptime, cybersecurity incidents and complaint resolution – and to subject systems to routine independent technical, legal and social audits.

Public reporting of results helps citizens, regulators and civil society assess whether DPI is delivering value.

Policy steps now

Policy makers can take practical steps now:

Map user journeys and exclusion risks before designing systems – DPI should be built around real user needs, especially those most likely to be excluded.

Adopt open standards and modular architectures to enable interoperability, reduce vendor lock-in and create space for local innovation.

Build strong legal and institutional safeguards, including data-protection laws, cybersecurity requirements, independent oversight and accessible grievance redress.

Pilot deliberately and scale conditionally – expansion should take place only after agreed technical, social and governance benchmarks have been met.

Publish key performance indicators and independent audit results, because transparency is essential for building public trust.

DPI can only deliver on its full potential and become true public infrastructure, benefiting all, when it is interoperable, inclusive, rights-respecting, sustainably funded and governed in the public interest.

The task is not only to build digital infrastructure, but to build trusted digital infrastructure for Africa.

The Author, Dr Jannie Zaaiman is the Secretary General of Technology Information Confederation Africa (TICON Africa)