Our Approach

GDN leads a Global South research effort on inclusive digital transformation. Under the scientific leadership of senior social scientists, we have assembled a research unit that works systematically with local researchers to answer critical questions about digital transformation that lack rigorous evidence. This ensures that locally-grounded insights shape how digital systems are designed, scaled, and adapted for inclusion and equity.

Why This Facility Matters

Digitalisation is now central to how economies grow, how services reach people, and how institutions function. The Global South is not just adopting these technologies: it is shaping them. But research systems have often struggled to keep pace. This creates three challenges:

Knowledge gaps

Countries are deploying digital systems faster than evidence can explain their effects.

Limited local insight

Research is often not locally generated, making it hard to understand how digital systems work for real communities.

Risks of exclusion or poor design

Without timely analysis, countries may lock in systems that are costly, ineffective, or inequitable.

How It Works

The facility is designed as a flexible platform that different partners can use and build on:

  • A platform donors can use to support research in LMICs
    Through our re-granting capacity, we channel resources to local research teams, infusing funding with capacity building, mentoring, and scientific collaboration. Donors can support rigorous, country-led research on digitalisation without having to set up new mechanisms from scratch.
 
  • A platform to test new theories and approaches
    Donors and researchers can rely on the facility to test new theoretical ideas and methodological approaches, and to generate comparative and cumulative knowledge from country-level implementation. Local researchers and GDN’s Theory Unit work in a continuous feedback loop. Led by senior economist Jean-Louis Arcand, the unit develops theoretical frameworks and uncovers rigorous evidence to produce high-quality policy-relevant knowledge.
 
  • A platform for training and community building for LMIC researchers
    The facility offers structured opportunities for training, peer learning, and network-building among researchers in LMICs working on digitalisation: from early-career scholars to established teams. This strengthens local leadership and creates communities of practice around digital public infrastructure and inclusive digital transformation.
 
  • A platform for policy engagement at regional and global level
    We provide spaces where evidence from LMICs can inform debates in regional bodies and global fora. By convening researchers, policymakers, and ecosystem actors around concrete findings, the facility helps ensure that insights from implementation travel across borders and into international policy discussions.

What We Aim to Achieve

The facility is built as a long-term, adaptable platform that can evolve with countries’ needs as digitalisation deepens and technologies advance. Our goals include:

Strengthening local research leadership
Digital transformation is complex and fast-moving. We fill critical knowledge gaps by working with local researchers to develop shared research agendas, generate comparative evidence across contexts, and build cumulative knowledge that advances the field.Supporting clearer, more coherent knowledge on digitalisation
Digital transformation is complex and fast-moving. The facility helps organise this space by developing shared research agendas, encouraging comparative learning, and promoting methods that make evidence more cumulative and useful.

Expanding access to quality data
We work toward a future where governments, implementers, and researchers can collaborate around secure, well-governed data systems that support responsible evaluation and innovation.

Embedding evidence into decision-making
By engaging directly with implementers and policymakers, we ensure that insights shape how digital systems are designed, scaled, and adapted, especially for inclusion, equity, and resilience.

Creating a collaborative platform for future challenges
As AI, algorithms, and new digital models reshape societies, the facility provides a space where countries can investigate these technologies on their own terms and generate locally grounded knowledge about their impacts.


At its core, the facility aims to help countries build digital futures that are inclusive, trusted, and effective, powered by evidence that reflects local realities and priorities.

Stay Connected

To learn more or explore opportunities, write to 
dpi@gdn.int