Six key steps for improving equality and efficiency in digital public infrastructure

Digital public infrastructure (DPI) has emerged as a society-wide approach to building digital capabilities that are increasingly essential to women’s and men’s participation in society and markets as citizens, workers, entrepreneurs, and consumers. The potential promise of DPI’s efficiency gains and value creation are dependent on these systems achieving scale, which is only possible when various technical, governance, cultural, and legal barriers to inclusive participation are minimized.

Discussions that directly address these barriers—between a full range of DPI implementers and stakeholders—can help to identify strategies for designing, implementing, and maintaining DPI systems when they are done early and intentionally.

To this end, the Brookings Center for Sustainable Development and Co-Develop co-hosted a virtual roundtable discussion on March 27, 2025, convening country-level DPI implementers, representatives from the private sector, foundations, civil society, and multilateral organizations. The roundtable focused on how DPI stakeholders can identify and implement steps to increase inclusion in DPI systems while also increasing their overall efficiency. From the discussion, six key steps were identified to improve equality and inclusion through DPI.

1. Intentionally design DPI for traditionally excluded users

While technology design often centers on the “generic user,” a more differentiated approach can reach more users. DPI system design can intentionally prioritize populations that are usually left behind, namely women and men who are elderly, have disabilities, live in rural areas, and/or are low-income. Failing to adopt more targeted approaches risks exacerbating existing inequalities. Adopting iterative design processes that actively engage diverse end-users should become standard practice. To this end, in Norway, researchers and blind users are collaborating to develop techniques for increasing accessibility of digital public services.

In Africa, an estimated 60% of people are not using digital technology despite living in areas that have adequate mobile network coverage. In India, those who work in manual labor in rural areas, face challenges such as difficulties with fingerprint detection. In such contexts, it is important to use human-centered approaches to design and implement DPI systems. Attractive, intuitive, and accessible interfaces can significantly boost user engagement. Inclusive DPI design processes can directly reduce common adoption barriers such as low literacy levels or language diversity. Practical solutions include creating user-friendly interfaces that are visually clear, equipped with multilingual, assisted-modalities (as exemplified by the Farmer.Chat AI bot deployed in Kenya), and capable of functioning offline, particularly crucial in areas with costly or limited bandwidth (as demonstrated in Ethiopia super-agent programs).

2. Use DPI to disrupt—not perpetuate—inequitable social norms

Technical solutions alone are insufficient to address the complexities of digital inclusion. Social norms significantly shape access to digital systems, often compounding existing inequalities. For instance, power structures within households can affect women’s ability to use digital services freely: When women are not seen as primary financial decisionmakers, they are less likely to obtain identification or own mobile phones, particularly smartphones, and their access frequently depends on male family members. In other cases, when DPI is targeted at women, it can unintentionally provoke a backlash in households in some countries, for instance, where women’s digital use is stigmatized as immoral and unacceptable. Community-based initiatives, such as India’s Internet Saathi program—which trains rural women to share digital literacy information with women peers in their villages—can help address these barriers to inclusion.

DPI design can recognize and proactively address these systemic barriers and dynamics rather than digitizing in ways that ignore and perpetuate existing disparities or potentially create new harms. Identifying specific incentives that both encourage DPI adoption by those who are excluded, while also disrupting societal norms that perpetuate exclusion can be a win-win. For example, the World Bank’s ID4D report on “Closing the Gender Gap in ID Ownership in Ethiopia” recommended offering Fayda registration at locations women already frequent, providing childcare and meals at registration sites, and collaborating with religious leaders, agricultural extension workers, and women’s networks—such as cooperatives and Iddir insurance groups—for outreach and design. Meanwhile, Morocco has made significant progress in digitizing public services and integrating digital technologies to enhance access for all, including persons with disabilities (through digitization of the disability certification process). Developing centralized repositories of best practices and peer-to-peer learning mechanisms across regions could enhance the effectiveness of service-delivery strategies.

3. Educate, empower, and incentivize key actors in service delivery

Because end-user challenges are typically mediated by frontline bureaucrats or workers who introduce, manage, and support the implementation of DPI services, these actors play a crucial role in either reinforcing or dismantling exclusion. Training programs must equip and empower bureaucrats to navigate gendered, socio-economic, and cultural barriers.

Levels of trust between communities and frontline workers that serve them can shape DPI outcomes. Frontline workers typically possess deep knowledge of their constituents, making them invaluable for inclusive design processes. Women mobile banking agents and maternal community health workers, like the ASHA workers in India, have successfully increased female participation in financial and healthcare services, particularly in conservative regions where social norms constrain women from interacting with men outside of the family. In another case, a district administrator in Maharashtra, India developed a Migrant Tracking System to better ensure that mothers and newborn children received state support, demonstrating how local knowledge can drive inclusive innovation. Meaningful incentives for DPI actors are needed to ensure the participation of excluded populations and to standardize localized and innovative frameworks to reach national-scale inclusion.

Businesses can further support uptake through cost-saving programs, such as offering discounts to customers who use DPI-linked services. Private stakeholders of all sizes should be included in DPI deployment strategies. While large financial institutions may not serve rural women directly, smaller, community-based institutions usually do. Recognizing the importance and knowledge of these localized financial actors, incentivizing diverse business participation, job creation, and skill development within emerging digital economies can improve DPI design and reach.

4. Cultivate trust by designing for privacy and agency

Ensuring evolving dialogue between technical design features and ethical and policy foundations of DPI systems can help cultivate citizen trust. The most marginalized individuals often face the greatest risks in being identifiable, which can make them vulnerable to harassment, abuse, or other negative behaviors. For example, compared to men, women are disproportionately targeted by cybersecurity threats, increasing their risks when engaging with DPI. Moreover, even the perception of such risks, regardless of whether they materialize, can deter individuals from participating, ultimately undermining inclusion.

User consent and selective disclosure should be foundational to DPI design, ensuring individuals have granular control over how their data is used, who can access it, and for how long. For instance, a positive design feature would allow individuals to explicitly consent to each distinct use of their data, such as choosing whether their biometric data can be accessed by government agencies or financial institutions. Best practices also dictate that DPI systems should minimize long-term data retention and use high-assurance verification modalities.

These approaches can help ensure that people retain the freedom and agency to decide when and how they are identified. To prevent the centralization of personal information, governments could act as cluster providers, enrolling individuals and issuing identities while decentralizing authentication methods and service delivery to safeguard personal information.

5. Calculate DPI investment and returns as a function of inclusion

For DPI to attract necessary investment, stakeholders across government, private sector, and civil society must recognize potential long-term returns in addition to short-term gains. Currently, international loan-based financing of DPI emphasizes the latter. If repayment pressures drive governments to monetize DPI through user fees or data exploitation, it could undermine the inclusive mission. Sustainable financing requires accessibility and equity beyond short-term cost recovery.

DPI’s interoperability is a key asset—the value of which can be quantified and elevated. Siloed governance often leads to fragmented technology, resulting in redundant efforts such as multiple ID systems for taxes, national security, and social benefits. Enabling digital services to integrate with commercial and cross-agency models enhances efficiencies while increasing opportunities for economic and societal value creation. For instance, government-backed (“G2P”) digital cash transfers have helped users establish local digital markets (“P2P”) on top of these systems. Regulatory incentives can further drive DPI adoption, as demonstrated in Ethiopia, where banks facilitate national ID registration.

6. Conduct timely research on DPI’s demand-side

Comprehensive research on the uptake and user experience of DPI systems is essential for ensuring that these systems are inclusive and effective. While traditional methods like user satisfaction surveys and exit interviews remain valuable, they can be complemented by more agile research methods that enable real-time rapid feedback loops for DPI implementers. Governments can incorporate inclusion metrics as key performance indicators in their DPI systems, with disaggregated usage patterns and outcomes by individuals and user groups becoming the norm.

Understanding how people experience the process of obtaining an ID and using it to access services helps pinpoint where systems function effectively and where they create barriers. Time-use surveys may be useful in further quantifying these inefficiencies by measuring waiting times and associated costs, demonstrating potential time and cost savings for both users and service providers. Research insights based on these methods can help build a stronger case for DPI adoption and reinforce the argument that inclusion drives efficiency. Early research pilots designed to capture a longitudinal “inclusivity pulse” of DPI systems can function as a guide to diffusion of best research practices across country contexts.