As DPI accelerates, African countries pursue digital sovereignty

When Sanjay Jain, director of digital public infrastructure, or DPI, at the Gates Foundation, took the stage at the Global DPI summit in Cape Town, South Africa, earlier this month, he described the foundation’s goal as helping the world move “from a time of digital aid to digital empowerment.” He was quoting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has worked to position India’s own DPI journey as a model for other low- and middle-income countries. DPI refers to the foundational data systems — such as digital identity, data sharing, and digital payments — that allow people, governments, and businesses to verify identity, transact, and access services ranging from healthcare to banking. Building that infrastructure is seen as increasingly vital for African nations, and DPI is rising up the list of priorities for many development organizations. The most influential players in DPI include the Gates Foundation, which has committed hundreds of millions to the cause; the World Bank, which defines DPI as digital building blocks designed for the public benefit; and India, which was a pioneer of DPI and elevated the issue through its presidency of the Group of 20 largest economies. Prior to joining the Gates Foundation, Jain helped to develop the India Stack, the interoperable identity, data, and payment systems underlying India’s DPI. “We know that for countries at the beginning of their digital journey, creating the kind of DPI that has taken others over a decade to build and refine can seem like a massive and complex undertaking — especially when donors come in offering digital aid in the form of many discrete digitalization projects,” Jain said. “That’s why the foundation and our partners have focused on developing tools and technical assistance that put countries in control.” While the government of India funded the India Stack infrastructure, many African countries adopting DPI rely on external aid. But several factors are increasing the urgency for African countries to pivot from dependency toward control over their digital destiny. Digital aid with strings attached Though many partners have come forward to help African countries build digital tools, these projects have not been as effective as promised — often because they don’t integrate with other digital services. The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development earlier this year exposed the vulnerability of these investments, jeopardizing systems that were depending on external financial and technical support. And now, with the accelerating rise of artificial intelligence, LMICs face a dual threat: They risk either being completely bypassed by the AI wave, or worse, suffering harm if they have no say over the application and governance of these new technologies. The DPI summit highlighted this shift from digital aid to digital empowerment, demonstrating how African countries are increasingly building DPI on their own terms. They are taking steps to ensure these systems serve national priorities rather than donor portfolios, and early adopters are sharing lessons with their peers. At the DPI summit, Jain encouraged donors to rally around platforms such as Co-Develop, a global nonprofit helping countries build inclusive, safe, and equitable DPI, and the World Bank DPI Trust Fund, which the bank has said will launch next spring. The Gates Foundation — a key backer of both of these efforts — is the largest private funder of DPI. But other philanthropic organizations, including The Rockefeller Foundation, Nilekani Philanthropies, and Omidyar Network, which founded Co-Develop, have also helped to set the global agenda. Of course, each of these funders brings its own agenda, said Robert Karanja, senior director for Africa at Co-Develop. For example, the Gates Foundation was the key backer of two open-source tools that African countries are using: MOSIP, which allows countries to build their own national identity systems, and Mojaloop, which follows a similar model for digital payment systems. “If the Gates Foundation is speaking to countries, those are the two solutions that will come to mind first,” Karanja said. “So what ends up happening is countries are left with very little wiggle room for agency.” From digital aid to digital agency Open-source platforms have been presented as tools that offer maximum customization and agency, as compared to proprietary models, which have been criticized for locking countries into working with a single provider. But they are not without their own strings attached. In fact, these tools can become just as limiting as proprietary software when countries don’t have the capacity to tailor them to their individual contexts. That’s why digital skills are increasingly part of the conversation around digital sovereignty. “Three years ago, it was just about where is your data stored?” said Kay McGowan, senior director for policy at the Digital Impact Alliance. “Now, it’s about where is your data, but also whose software are you using? Who’s actually implementing and maintaining your software? And where is your talent coming from? There is so much more recognition of the complexity of digital sovereignty and how countries are thinking about how to have agency and make strategic decisions over the design and governance of their digital foundations.” As part of the push for more local control of DPI, there’s growing interest in supporting and working with local systems integrators. One example is WiredIn, a software firm based in Kigali, Rwanda, which worked to integrate Mojaloop into Rwanda’s financial ecosystem, with training from the Mojaloop Foundation’s accelerator program. Meanwhile, the DPI space is drawing interest from Silicon Valley, including AI companies. Last week, for example, Anthropic announced a new partnership with the Rwandan government to bring Chidi, a learning companion built on its large language model Claude, to hundreds of thousands of learners across Africa. While countries still reliant on external resources to build their DPI try and take more control of their digital futures, the key is to avoid a fragmented approach to building DPI, said Sabine Mensah, deputy CEO of AfricaNenda, a Pan-African nonprofit organization focused on inclusive instant payment systems. Across many countries, different ministries continue to divide up leadership of DPI building blocks rather than working on a “building a technology stack that will enable societal impact,” said Mensah, whose organization recently released a report on the state of inclusive instant payment systems in Africa. But she noted that Rwanda, South Africa, and Nigeria are modeling a more coordinated approach to DPI — and that increasingly, African countries are sharing best practices with each other. For example, since Ethiopia rolled out its MOSIP-based digital identity, Fayda, it is now sharing its expertise across the continent. The new economics of DPI As the world transitions from public sector to private sector financing of development, companies must play a more meaningful role in developing DPI on the African continent, James Mwangi, CEO of the financial services company Equity Group Holdings, said at the DPI summit. “It’s good that the initial DPI systems in the world were supported by philanthropists, foundations, and the rest,” he said. But the role of grant money is to prove concepts and de-risk innovation, Mwangi said, urging the private sector: “This is our moment.” He stressed the importance of this shift for the continent to maintain autonomy as it catches up to, or perhaps even surpasses, the rest of the world on DPI. “The best thing of mobilizing domestic capital in developing DPI infrastructure is that Africa doesn’t just become a user but becomes an owner of its own infrastructure,” he said. While India was a pioneer of DPI, its top-down approach excluded private sector companies, including telecommunications providers, which Karanja noted are often the largest taxpayers and biggest employers within African countries. Karanja expects that DPI will begin to spread more quickly throughout Africa as countries on the continent share lessons with one another and bring all the needed stakeholders together. “I think if the private sector and state sit at the same table together with civil society, many countries will be able to craft solutions that make more sense to their specific realities,” he said.