A report from the Rockefeller Foundation outlines an agenda for international cooperation on building digital public infrastructure (DPI) — systems that accomplish basic but essential functions at a societal scale and can be used to develop new applications for the greater good.

Developed with input from the Digital Public Goods Alliance and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, the report, Co-Develop: Digital Public Infrastructure for an Equitable Recovery (41 pages, PDF), points out that as COVID-19 spread, digital systems that enabled people to continue working together, collect and manage data, and create new tools proved to be an important foundation for the global response. "Countries that already had in place digital ID systems, digital payment systems, and trusted data sharing systems have been better equipped to mitigate the socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic," the report's authors state.

With the aim of "building back better" by building DPI that promotes inclusion, human rights, and progress toward global goals, the report highlights six key areas for international cooperation and investment: a vision for DPI as a whole, backed by practice, research, and evaluation; a global commons based on digital public goods (DPGs); safeguards for inclusion, trust, competition, security, and privacy; tools that use data in DPI for public value and private empowerment; private and public capacity, particularly in implementing countries; and silo-busting, built-for-purpose coordinating, funding, and financing. The report also offers examples of successful tools and platforms, as well as open-source software and standards classified as DPGs available for DPI development.

"We want to build strong DPI everywhere — systems that are capable of serving billions of people and meeting new challenges. This will require putting much greater thought and resources into each of these six elements and deeper cooperation across borders and across sectors," the report's authors write. "Innovators around the world are already putting into place the elements of co-development....Their successes in building DPI and using it to tackle big problems show what the next steps look like. Co-development is already here; it's on us to make it happen everywhere."

(Photo credit: Rockefeller Foundation)