DPI Podcast: Role of Governments in the DPI Ecosystem
In this episode, I discuss the various roles governments play in the DPI ecosystem along with the political economy, governance, financing, and people considerations that governments need to think about in their DPI journeys with Kate Wilson from People-Centered Internet and Digital Impact Alliance.
My key takeaways from the discussion were —
- Policymakers generally think sectorally in the context of a specific problem. While this is well-meaning — this sectoral focus comes from looking at problems from an education or health or climate emergency lens. Policies and programs are also financed sectorally — this is another reason of siloed approaches to digital governance.
- Governments can use a 5P approach while designing their DPI journey — problems, political will, policies, products, and people.
- Problem — what is the larger problem the government is trying to solve? what are the usecases?
- Political will — is there enough political will to rally together different departments and groups to build a DPI that everyone can leverage
- Policies — are the policies in place to make the DPIs inclusive, equitable, and safe for citizens to use?
- Products — can a well-represented team put together a set of products needed to solve the problem?
- People — are there a set of people who have the capacity to build this? Are citizens aware of their rights and benefits while engaging with DPI?
3. There’s a lot that countries can learn or pick from the DPI journeys from other countries that have a very different context from theirs. This can be looked at from a two-tiered lens. The base layer — fundamental technology blocks like ID systems, payments, data exchange, etc can be leveraged from any country. However, the innovation on top of those layers has to factor in the unique context of the particular country — legislations, governance systems, political economy, etc. This way countries can learn from each other, but also build an ecosystem to innovate depending on their context.
About Kate -
Kate Wilson is a Senior Fellow at People-Centered Internet. Kate believes that every person should have access to life enhancing services made possible through digital. She has dedicated her career to make this vision a reality by supporting countries that seek to accelerate their national digital transformation efforts.
As a Senior Fellow at PCI, Kate shares perspectives from decades of working closely with national leaders who are charting their national digital journeys. Prior to joining PCI as a fellow, Kate founded the Digital Impact Alliance in February 2016 and led the organization as its CEO until January 2023. Before DIAL, Kate co-founded and led the Digital Health Solutions Group at PATH, the Seattle-based international health organization for nine years. She has also worked in the commercial software sector at Microsoft and Intel, and worked on international trade issues at General Electric and the U.S.-ASEAN Council. Over the last three decades, Kate has led global projects in over thirty countries, working primarily in Africa and Asia.
