Governing Digital Public Infrastructure for Impact

But without well-designed governance frameworks, these systems risk reinforcing exclusion, limiting public trust, and failing to deliver true public value.
As part of the East Africa Data Governance conference, Caribou — in collaboration with Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL), Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure (CDPI) and the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD) — hosted the panel “Governance by design for impact: Putting society at the center of digital public infrastructure and data exchange.” The panel explored strategies to prevent DPI and data exchange from causing widespread structural exclusion, emphasizing the need for effective governance to maximize public benefit. Discussions also covered practical approaches for developing metrics to assess and ensure the positive impact of DPI on people’s lives.

Practical ways to prevent structural exclusion
To prevent structural exclusion in digital systems, it is crucial to include all stakeholders, not just those at the implementation level. A key example is the open data platform in Kenya, which initially focused on data supply from the government but missed involving those who would use the data, such as developers, technologists, and researchers. A conscious decision to involve civil society organizations led to steady growth and community involvement. This highlights the importance of understanding stakeholder roles and ensuring stakeholders’ active participation.

Design should be with the citizen in mind, focusing on value from and to citizens. It’s crucial to balance governmental institutional value, such as efficiency and improved revenue, with public value and citizen engagement. The emphasis should be on technology for the good of society rather than society for the benefit of the government or revenue generation. This ensures that DPI initiatives genuinely serve the public interest and contribute to societal well-being.

Keep digital public interest top of mind. Digital infrastructure should be viewed from a digital public interest lens, rather than from the perspective of an individual organization or government. Standardizing processes and policies ensures efficiency, interoperability, and equal access. Shared infrastructure is essential, with a whole-of-government approach. By adopting this perspective, resources can be used more efficiently and redundancy can be minimized.

Engagement should occur at every level, working through civil society and community-based organizations. While public policymaking processes ideally involve people at all levels, being truly people-centric is challenging. It involves cost, time, workforce communication, and reach implications. Special attention should be given to marginalized groups, including those without written languages. Explaining concepts like consent requires addressing varying levels of digital and data literacy.

Trust is the currency for data exchange and flow. From the outset, DPI design, implementation, and governance, especially in data exchange platforms, must prioritize trust. Governance should be integrated from the beginning to ensure proper mechanisms are in place and systemic risks are prevented. This proactive approach is essential for building and maintaining public confidence in digital systems.

As AI continues to advance, DPI must be at the center of its growth to support its development while ensuring responsible data governance and user-centric design and architecture. Lessons from the Kenya National AI Strategy 2025–2030 drafting process highlight the importance of inclusive policymaking, where key stakeholders — including telecommunications companies, multinationals, civil society, and academia — collaborate to shape AI strategies. For AI to serve diverse communities effectively, DPI must provide a robust foundation, enabling secure data access, interoperability, and shared infrastructure. Standardized governance processes are essential to guide AI innovation while safeguarding privacy, promoting ethical AI use, and ensuring that technological advancements deliver real public value without reinforcing structural exclusions.

When evaluating the impact of DPI, the key question should be: Is it extractive, or does it genuinely benefit citizens? Measuring the impact of DPI should be viewed through the lens of the people it is intended to serve. Instead of measuring success based on outputs such as the number of IDs issued or accounts opened, the focus should shift to how DPI is transforming lives, expanding rights, and enabling citizens to achieve their aspirations and driving economic and social progress. To effectively measure DPI’s impact, several critical areas should be considered:

> Trust and governance — Strong data protection policies, public awareness, and transparent data control are key indicators of a DPI system that prioritizes citizen rights.

> Inclusion and accessibility — Are citizens able to connect and meaningfully engage with services? Metrics like broadband access and mobile penetration help assess whether DPI is reaching the people it intends to serve.

> Economic and social impact — DPI should fuel entrepreneurship and innovation. Measuring how many businesses have launched or scaled, who the businesses serve, and how these impact citizens due to integrated government data platforms can reveal DPI’s broader economic value.

For DPI measurement to be meaningful, stakeholders must develop a common terminology and shared understanding of impact metrics, much like how the mobile industry universally uses, for example, “average revenue per user.” The African context must guide the creation of relevant and people-centered metrics that truly reflect DPI’s success in empowering communities — for example, evaluating digital identity with metrics that are recognized across different regions and countries. It is important to define metrics that are impactful and relevant to the African context, ensuring that the metrics used reflect what impact really means to the people.

Building inclusive and effective DPI requires a multi-stakeholder approach that prioritizes public value, trust, and accessibility. Structural exclusion can be prevented by actively engaging civil society, the private sector, and marginalized communities, ensuring that digital systems serve diverse needs rather than reinforce inequalities. This goes hand in hand with measuring DPI’s success to determine impact, which should go beyond numbers to reflect real-life impact, from economic empowerment to expanded rights and opportunities. By fostering collaboration, transparency, and shared understanding of impact, DPI can drive meaningful digital transformation that benefits all citizens.