Why Africa Will Define the Next Decade of Digital Public Infrastructure

Originally published on Development Gateway: An IREX Venture, December 17, 2025. Co-authored with Mariam Ibrahim and Wakini Njogu.

A reflection by three DG colleagues across country implementation, partnerships, AI, data governance, and strategic communications on the Global DPI Summit, Cape Town, November 2025.

Key Shifts in the DPI Conversation

• From high-level frameworks to on-the-ground tools — shared language has aligned technologists, policymakers, implementers, and funders; now the narrative is about service delivery.
• Growing urgency to implement, but also recognition of deep complexity — endorsement from governments, multilaterals, philanthropists, and private sector coexists with messy realities.

Three Central Themes from the Summit

1. From Idealism to Implementation Reality

• Hard questions now front and centre: sustainable financing, vendor lock-in avoidance, interoperability.
• Tangible progress: The 50-in-5 Campaign now active in 32 countries; examples include a 10-year PPP model (Palestine) and production-grade systems replacing pilots.
• African on-the-ground truth: political transitions, limited technical and strategic capacity, ethics, and culture shape what’s possible. African experience injects critical realism and highlights unavoidable trade-offs.

2. Trust and Inclusion: The Backbone of DPI

• Trust surfaced in every session, framed in three ways:
  • Procedural: safeguards and regulation
  • Operational: systems that function reliably
  • Relational: citizens’ belief that services will benefit them
• Kenya example: An 18-year-old completed 80% of passport processing online via eCitizen, but had to repeat biometric steps already captured for his national ID. “Why isn’t data that has already been collected used to improve service delivery?” This is both an interoperability problem and a question of institutional trust and risk appetite.
• African context: Research ICT Africa emphasizes that DPI cannot be copied wholesale from other regions and must begin with realities like uneven access. Trust-building must be grounded in local conditions.

3. Interoperability: Non-Negotiable but Poorly Understood

• Recognised as essential, not a “nice-to-have.”
• Proven successes:
  • Inter-American Development Bank’s platform: single account for citizens to access multiple services across countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
  • Indonesia’s Government Services Liaison System (Gov SL) with auto-scaling: scaled from 65 to 435 connected institutions, handled over 58 million data transactions, maintained ~99.9% uptime.
    “This is exactly what allows us to grow from 65 agencies to 435 connected institutions, handle over 58 million data transactions this year, and still maintain about 99.9% uptime.”
    — Yessi Arnaz Ferrari, Director of Digital Government Application, Indonesia
• Persistent gap: most DPI examples focus on digital ID and payments (fundable, politically attractive), while data exchange remains the “missing middle.”
• Burundi’s data exchange hurdles:
  • Language barriers (French platform, local languages lack technical terms)
  • Only 40% smartphone penetration
  • Local offices hesitant to participate in cross-registry integration
• DG’s own work (e.g., in Ethiopia’s agriculture sector) confirms that repurposing legacy systems and building data exchange mechanisms is hard but indispensable.

Where the Conversation Must Go Next: Africa’s Defining Role

Africa as the Unmined Opportunity

“Africa’s current 2-3% GDP contribution, despite accounting for 18% population share, is not a deficit but evidence of massive untapped potential that private sector-led DPI can unlock.”

— Dr. James Mwangi, CEO, Equity Bank

• African capital must be deployed by Africans for African infrastructure — not dependent on grants and philanthropy.
• By 2050, 42% of the world’s workforce (2.6 billion people, mean age 18) will be in Africa. With the right DPI foundation, that labour force can serve global markets from the continent, flipping the narrative on migration and dependency.

DPI as a Public Good: The “Roads” Analogy

• Viewing DPI like public roads forces critical governance questions: who funds, builds, governs, and coordinates these systems? Weak coordination brings fragmentation and misalignment.
• Africa will test assumptions and reveal blind spots — advocacy and branding alone won’t make DPI succeed.

Missing Voices and Unintended Risks

• Civil society was largely absent; a wider range of government actors is also needed.
• The push for speed risks overlooking institutional readiness and could deepen digital inequalities for the very communities DPI aims to help.

Anchoring DPI in Evidence and Local Realities

• Research such as the Africa DPI study by Research ICT Africa is shifting the question from “how do countries adopt existing models?” to “what does DPI need to succeed in African countries?”
• Communities of Practice like ImNet (hosted by Open Cities Lab) bring together African DPI implementers for a coordinated approach supporting inclusive economic opportunity, digital sovereignty, and improved public service delivery.

This post was originally published on Development Gateway: An IREX Venture on December 17, 2025, co-authored with Mariam Ibrahim and Wakini Njogu. Republished here with full attribution. All rights remain with the original publisher.