Imagine a mother in rural Rukungiri who, with just a smartphone and a national identification card can access health insurance, get agricultural subsidies, register her child’s birth and notification of the next vaccination campaign – all without physically going to a government office.

Digital public Infrastructure (DPI) is a term that encompasses a collection of large or population-scale digital systems and technological infrastructure in service of people and society. Of course, ICT-for-development has been around for decades but the DPI approach brings forth more coherence.

We have seen the transformative power of DPI for people (digital ID), money (mobile payments) and data (secure data exchanges). Statistics show that the Aadhaar ID system in India, for example, delivered increased consumption of financial services by women who were previously left out of the economic system.

We have also had Pix, the payment system in Brazil; the Digital Vaccine Certificate in Sri Lanka, to mention but a few. With less than five years to the deadline on Agenda 2030, the biggest drivers for development of DPIs include access, efficiency and equity in aspects of financial inclusion, economic empowerment, health and agriculture that meet the needs of a population.

As such, it is no doubt that DPI will remain a key interface for the operation of the digital public goods (DPGs) under the Sustainable Development Goals agenda. We have a responsibility to render DPIs useful, secure, safe and inclusive for the common good.

This means recognising its transformative potential, and the resultant risks like mass system-wide surveillance and data breaches, the undesired residuals. To that end, proper and transparent governance is essential to build trust, unlock potential and ensure that DPIs serve humanity.

This saves us from rogue, expensive and useless infrastructure that doesn’t deliver as intended. Governance ensures that we don’t expend resources towards systems that exacerbate inequalities and exclusion because a digital ID without inclusion is simply a barcode for the privileged.

We ought to design, develop and deploy the technology as a vehicle for values-based governance. But while at it, safeguards become fundamental in ensuring that people aren’t forced to trade off their human rights and security for inclusion and service delivery. The role of safeguards, equaled to that of a firewall preventing systems from breach, cannot be overstated.

They form the backbone that upholds resilience, equity and trust, ensuring a thriving and secure digital future. As a country, we are going to need to localise a bunch of both fundamental and operational safeguards benchmarking on what has worked the world over and embedding them in the design and implementation journey.

With the right safeguards, we shall have DPI that respects rights and protects the planet. We also need to answer the conundrum of who gets to fund the development of DPI. Should it be the government, the private sector or both through a public-private partnership (PPP)?

African governments are usually resource-constrained owing to the enormity of priorities but then again most private entities are fashioned with a for-profit goal, meaning that rights run the risk of taking the back seat.

We need to align and negotiate fair PPPs for funding and in the alternative, lobby for strong votes at budgetary level towards DPI development. DPIs can unlock inclusivity, climate transition, equitable just and sustainable value, thereby propelling us from middle or low to high income.

A recent High court decision in Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER) and 2 Ors v. Attorney General & Anor, High Court Miscellaneous Cause No. 0086 of 2022 (June 10, 2025) confirming that the Ugandan ID is not a ‘digital ID’ is a reflection of the task ahead of us.

We need to align the system to support foundational DPI modeling in order to derive benefit. We need electricity, strong cybersecurity, ubiquitous broadband access, digital literacy, needs assessment within the citizenry, continued growth of the workforce and having policy choices translate into architectural decisions.

In so doing, we ensure that values are embedded in the code that underlies these technologies lest we risk automating injustice. Since the development of technology is not linear, Uganda should think from its most impactful and value-unlocking DPI in order to achieve sustainable and inclusive societies.

raymondamumpaire@gmail.com

The writer is an ICT-for-development consultant.