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Socioeconomic Impact of Digital Public Infrastructure

 

What is Digital Public Infrastructure?

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) refers to the digitisation of systems and frameworks that enable the timely delivery of public services and functions, thereby reducing the need for physical human intervention. This includes digital identity, payment systems, data exchange frameworks, and other technologies that facilitate efficient, accessible, and transparent public services. Learn more about DPI here. 

 

About the Program

GDN’s newest program, launched in 2024, the Socioeconomic Impact of Digital Public Infrastructure program, in partnership with Co-Develop, aims to utilise and enhance local research capacity by engaging researchers from Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and Benin. Guided by a Scientific Committee of global experts, the pilot program will implement innovative research methods to evaluate the socioeconomic impacts of DPI. The committee will also co-author a comprehensive research framework to study DPI's developmental effects, fostering cross-country scientific exchange and building a robust evidence base for DPI interventions, building towards a larger global initiative led by GDN in 2025.

 

Program Objectives

In partnership with Co-Develop, GDN is engaged in a one-year pilot project during 2024, focusing on:

1. Scientific Committee: Convening a group of global experts as a Scientific Committee to advise on the pilot project and coauthor a research framework for evaluating the DPI-socioeconomic development nexus across multiple countries, based on an initial pilot phase.
2. Pilot Research Projects: Implementing three pilot projects in Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and Benin with local researchers (Ethiopian Economics Association, South Asian Network on Economic Modeling, and African Center for Equitable Development, respectively) under the guidance of the Scientific Committee. These researchers and the Scientific Committee will have cross-interactions across multiple platforms enabling scientific exchange. The projects in Ethiopia, Benin, and Bangladesh will evaluate different use cases: 

These projects will assess the impact on socioeconomic outcomes such as: 

  • Tax data quality

  • Taxpayer experience

  • Broader tax base

  • Public goods and services provision

  • Gender-related constraints in accessing services

  • Economic activity

  • Financial inclusion

  • Healthcare accessibility

  • Education quality

  • Agricultural efficiency

  • Governance

  • Transparency

  • Gender equality

  • Social protection

 

3. High-Visibility Events: Presenting preliminary findings at the Global DPI Summit in Cairo, Egypt and IMF-WB Fall Meetings in Washington DC during October 2024.

 

This program is a microcosm of GDN’s larger approach, characterised by: 

These characteristics allow GDN to circumvent common challenges with DPI interventions such as rapid implementation vs. slow research, limited national research engagement and scarce cross-country comparative evidence.

 

Future Directions

This partnership aims to create a South-South and North-South community of researchers working on DPI and its developmental impacts, generating high-quality comparative evidence on DPI rollouts and use cases. The outcomes will feed up-to-date evidence into national and global debates on DPI, contributing to a larger global initiative set to launch in 2025. 

 

For more information, contact Francesco Obino, Balasubramanyam Pattath and Kishen Shastry Kudur Shastry.