Fragile states face a heightened dilemma when it comes to digital infrastructure: Technologies like digital identification (ID) and real-time payment systems can help deliver lifesaving services and build state capacity amid instability, yet their deployment risks reinforcing the exclusion of vulnerable populations or empowering abusive regimes. An enduring question for policymakers and digital transformation experts—only accentuated in a world of shrinking development assistance budgets—is how to build digital systems in a way that helps strengthen state capacity while protecting citizens from state overreach.
Digital public infrastructure (DPI), an emerging approach to building society-wide digital systems for ID, payments, and data exchange, may offer new answers. By emphasizing the development of adaptable and interoperable “horizontal” layers of foundational digital systems, paired with regulation and governance to ensure social inclusion and public accountability, DPI has the potential to support rapid humanitarian response through digital cash transfers directed to intended beneficiaries, while laying the groundwork for longer-term market-making activities and institutional recovery over time (e.g., through secure and data-driven tax systems). Privacy-preserving design elements of DPI systems, including federated data storage, tokenization, and consent mechanisms, have the potential to increase citizen protections against risks of state abuse.
Real-time digital payment systems and mechanisms for identifying beneficiaries are increasingly considered crucial digital infrastructure preconditions for effective humanitarian assistance and long-term economic value creation in fragile contexts. Currently, however, among the 60 fragile states identified by OECD’s 2022 fragile states index, only 17 have what the global DPI Map considers an operational real-time payment system. Fifteen states have some form of verifiable digital ID system in operation or in rollout; only eight combine both. These figures underscore the need for a deeper analysis of how DPI can support greater resilience in these settings.
To this end, a December 2024 Brookings virtual roundtable, hosted in partnership with Co-Develop, gathered digital transformation stakeholders across sectors and geographies to identify priority aspects of DPI’s technical design, investment, and regulation and governance in fragile contexts. Through a focus on case studies in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and Sudan, the conversation distilled five mutually reinforcing approaches to advancing DPI’s potential as a backbone for resilience in fragile contexts.
1. Pursue harmonization of technical standards between humanitarian- and state-led systems.
International actors in fragile contexts often rely on standalone digital systems for identifying beneficiaries and delivering assistance to meet urgent humanitarian goals and program deliverables. While these systems can be effective in addressing immediate needs, particularly in environments with weak or contested state capacity and ongoing violent conflict, they can also complicate and increase the cost of longer-term development priorities by creating parallel infrastructures.
Inefficiencies of parallel systems can be addressed through the creation of common standards and protocols to support integration or harmonization. For example, Ethiopia has integrated Mastercard’s Community Pass (used initially for aid) with the state-run Fayda ID. In Sudan, while the humanitarian-led digital systems are a response to the reality of ongoing violent conflict and contested governance, the Sudan Cash Working Group, a coordination body for standardizing protocols for cash and voucher assistance comprising 87 humanitarian partners, could be an important forum for similar future harmonization between donor-run digital cash transfers with future state-led digital systems. Open-source architectures like Mojaloop for payment systems or MOSIP for digital ID are appealing in this context, allowing international humanitarian actors to deploy auditable, cloud-based payment or ID systems initially before transferring control to national authorities once stability improves.
When considering ambitions for more proactive “integration by design” in digital systems, roundtable participants cited the need to (1) prioritize privacy and data protections in the technical design of DPI systems to ensure citizen trust, and (2) better align international humanitarian actor incentives and programs with longer-term local development priorities, for example, by designing humanitarian aid disbursement in ways that contribute to building inclusive and sustainable digital payments markets over time.
2. Nurture locally led DPI ecosystems
DPI requires investment in an ecosystem of local technical experts, system integrators, and civil society organizations (CSOs). Ethiopia, for example, invested in an open-source developer community to adopt and adapt the MOSIP digital ID architecture, ensuring local ownership and autonomy. Concurrently, the Ethiopian government has worked with local and international CSOs to cultivate citizen trust in its ID system, by (i) demonstrating that Fayda would not collect or display information about ethnicity (which could be used for surveillance or to target people in the war); (ii) moving the hosting of the digital ID system from the National Intelligence and Security Service to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO); and (iii) drafting (in 2020) and enacting (in 2024) a comprehensive personal data protection law. By contrast, roundtable participants noted that the realities of ongoing state conflict and contestation have impeded the development of analogous locally led efforts in contexts like Afghanistan and Sudan.
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3. Leverage available technical foundations to address citizen needs
Society-wide access and use of DPI systems rely on underlying technical foundations often compromised in fragile contexts. For instance, a nationally scaled payment system relies on a national switch (software enabling routing, clearing, and settlement of payment transactions across banks, mobile money operators, and beneficiaries), active mobile network operators (MNOs), and widespread cell phone adoption and use.
Despite recent political and social instability in Afghanistan, the presence of a functioning national switch, multiple MNOs, and wide distribution of cell phones (estimated 60% of the population own cell phones) have supported DPI use cases that address citizen needs. For instance, these foundations have enabled third-party fintech solutions like HesabPay (a blockchain-based real-time payment system with over 600 thousand registered accounts) to facilitate direct digital payments to women. In a 2022 randomized trial of a program for 2409 women identified as extremely vulnerable and digitally illiterate, 98% of transfers were spent digitally by the recipient, demonstrating high cost effectiveness. HesabPay was also used to deliver aid after the Herat earthquake in 2023. Tiered Know-Your-Customer (KYC) requirements have allowed humanitarian actors and fintech companies like HesabPay to enroll vulnerable populations in digital payment systems without requiring official state-issued IDs. In a similar vein, Ethiopia has tested offline enrollment hubs for digital ID in remote regions.
By contrast, acute fragility in Sudan has limited opportunities for DPI implementation. Sudan’s national switch—initially designed to support interoperability among domestic banks and mobile money operators—is now largely defunct amid ongoing violent conflict. Furthermore, its original design prioritized large commercial banks—often foreign-owned—limiting its utility for local institutions serving vulnerable populations.
4. Regulate for certainty and competition
Clear rules can stabilize markets without stifling innovation and market-making in fragile states. By mandating interoperability among mobile networks and banks, for example, Afghanistan’s Central Bank helped stabilize the financial sector by creating a competitive ecosystem where a third-party system like HesabPay has been licensed to operate with regulatory oversight. In Ethiopia, exposure of the banking and telecommunication sectors to regulatory reform and increased competition has incentivized actors within these sectors to drive digital ID enrolment strategies as a basis for new financial products and services while reducing fraud. Conversely, the lack of a competitive banking sector in Sudan was cited as a barrier to DPI design and rollout when conditions allow. The U.N. Development Programme’s Universal DPI safeguards framework provides a set of principles and strategies for regulating and governing safe and inclusive DPI.
5. Foster proactive stakeholder collaboration
Collective action to design, implement, and sustain DPI systems is critical to unlocking its shared value. Ethiopia’s PMO facilitated an agreement among banks, telecommunications providers, and agribusinesses to co-invest in Fayda enrollment—banks and telcos reduced fraud and gained verified users while farmers received input subsidies. Afghanistan’s Central Bank convened financial institutions and mobile network operators to develop a common system for real-time payments, laying a foundation for society-scale financial services and inclusion. These cases highlight the value in governments convening a full range of DPI stakeholders (beyond direct implementers), defining joint incentives early, and establishing mechanisms for ongoing collaboration and accountability. The Sudan Cash Working Group may serve as a nascent forum for multistakeholder collaboration for state-led DPI systems when local conditions allow.
Conclusion
Specific dimensions of fragility, including ongoing violent conflict and state contestation will fundamentally shape the opportunities and risks of DPI implementation. Greater attention to five interconnected approaches—parallel system harmonization, local capacity building, leveraging technical foundations, regulatory innovations, and proactive stakeholder collaboration—can help promote DPI systems as a backbone for government services and business development while promoting citizen safety.
|
Gabi Adotevi |
Modular Open Source Identity Platform (MOSIP) |
|
Ilaha Eli Omar
|
Uplift Afghanistan Fund |
| Magdi Amin | African Renaissance Ventures |
| Laura Bingham | Rutgers University |
| Michael Callen | London School of Economics |
| Jaclyn Carlsen | USAID |
| Lindsey Crumbaugh | Co-Develop |
| Ahmed Dermish | UN Capital Development Fund |
| Julia Dias | Inter-American Development Bank |
| David Eaves | University College London |
| Tarek Ghani | Brookings Institution |
| Caren Grown | Brookings Institution |
| Steve Haley | Mojaloop Foundation |
| Paula Hunter | Mojaloop Foundation |
| George Ingram | The Brookings Institution |
| Sanzar Kakar | HesabPay |
| Amr Khalid | TEKNOGATE |
| Max Kintisch | Digital Public Goods Alliance |
| Ibrahim Mamma | Digital Impact Alliance |
| Kathleen McGowan | Digital Impact Alliance |
| Matthew McNaughton | Co-Develop |
| Omer Omarabi | TEKNOGATE |
| Nigel Pont | Algorand Foundation |
| Liz Ramey | Co-Develop |
| Basma Saeed | UNDP Sudan |
| Jordan Sandman | Co-Develop |
| Jacob Taylor | Brookings Institution |
| Edoardo Totolo | Accion |
| Priya Vora | Digital Impact Alliance |
| Staci Warden | Algorand Foundation |
Correction: An earlier version of this text included errors that have since been corrected online. The 2023 earthquake referenced under point 3 (Leverage available technical foundations to address citizen needs) has been updated to correctly identify the Herat earthquake, not “Haydot.” Additionally, Ilaha Eli Omar was previously misidentified as Ilaha Afghani under roundtable participants, and her organization has been updated to reflect the correct name: Uplift Afghanistan Fund. We regret the errors and appreciate the clarifications.
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Commentary
Digital public infrastructure for resilience in fragile contexts
Five approaches to balancing state capacity and citizen protection
March 24, 2025