The Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) is a multi-stakeholder initiative with a mission to accelerate the attainment of the SDGs in low- and middle-income countries by facilitating the discovery, development, use of, and investment in digital public goods. In 2022 countries increasingly recognised and implemented digital public goods as part of their digital transformations. Alongside this growth, the Digital Public Goods Alliance has seen an increase in the frequency, nuance, and sophistication with which digital public goods are spoken about. This represents an exciting chapter for the advancement of digital public goods worth exploring further.
eGov Foundation was included a member of the Digital Public Goods Alliance in 2022. Certified as a digital public good by the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA), DIGIT has helped over 16 million citizens seamlessly access such public services. Along with DIGIT, DIVOC was also certified as a open source digital platform for large scale digital vaccination credentialing programs. At eGov we build DPGs and DPI for governance and development impact, works with policy stakeholders to create an enabling public policy environment, and engage with stakeholders across industry, academia and civil society to ensure these DPGs and DPI are effectively leveraged to drive development outcomes. We believe that achieving the SDGs at scale across the Global South requires the acceleration and simplification that a combination of digital and non-digital public goods can provide.
In consultation with Digital Public Goods Alliance, we reflected on the potential of DPGs and DPIs in solving global challenges and forging the way ahead. Recently DPGA released a report on The State of the Digital Public Goods Ecosystem in 2022 that captures and highlights the progress of DPGs across 30+Governments, organizations, and highlights eGov Foundation’s leadership role with DPGs in the areas of municipal service delivery, public health credentials, public finance management, and more. Click to access the full report. We are also working with GovStack towards accelerating the digital transformation of government services globally. Digitization has become an essential lever to accelerate the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals. eGov has collaborated with GovStack Global to co-author a Country Engagement Playbook which will be used for driving impact through digital governance transformation projects initially in the Horn of Africa region (Kenya, Somalia and Djibouti). Subsequently, the playbook is intended to enable anyone who will work in countries implementing GovStack building blocks.
The Digital Public Goods Alliance also hosted its first ever in-person meeting in Oslo in 2022. The participants deliberated on a range of topics including the creation of digital public infrastructure, support needed across countries, fostering an ecosystem around DPG and DPI implementation and support, as well as capacity building for countries. In addition, the group also focused on the rising need to address issues of information pollution and to take a normative approach to public technologies. eGov was represented by Manish Srivastava and Gautham Ravichander.
