The Global Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) Summit 2025, held in Cape Town, South Africa, brought together governments, development partners, technology leaders, and civil society actors from all over the world to discuss how digital public infrastructure can support inclusive, sustainable, and trustworthy digital transformation. The summit, which was organized in collaboration with the Government of South Africa, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Co-Develop, the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and other international partners, provided a timely opportunity to assess global DPI progress and develop a roadmap for fair digital futures.
Key areas of contention
While the official theme emphasized inclusion, trust, and sustainability, discussions revealed the underlying tensions that define the global DPI movement from ideological, financial, and governance-based power struggles. At the heart of the debates were three unresolved questions: Who controls digital infrastructure? Who benefits from it? And who bears accountability for its risks?
Governments from the Global majority, continue to champion sovereign, interoperable, and open systems tailored to national realities, while donor agencies and private sector leaders pressed for globally interoperable, efficiency-driven architectures often tied to proprietary or standardized frameworks such as the India Stack and MOSIP. This exposed an ideological divide between digital sovereignty and digital dependency, with African and Asian delegations warning against “digital colonialism” through donor-conditioned financing and the uncritical adoption of external models. Civil society groups, meanwhile, cautioned that DPI if poorly governed could entrench surveillance, inequality, and data extraction under the guise of development.
Within this ecosystem, stakeholder power dynamics were starkly visible. Governments held the sovereignty stake, seeking to balance security, autonomy, and access to funding, while donor blocs pushed the financing stake, steering policy direction through conditional support mechanisms that implicitly privileged specific governance models. Civil society and academia occupied the accountability stake, challenging efficiency narratives and demanding greater oversight, transparency, and rights-based safeguards. The technology and private sector actors retained the commercial stake, offering technical scale but often pushing closed, revenue-oriented systems that threatened the open-source ideals of DPI.
There was also an emphasis for investment in local innovation ecosystems, skills development, and data protection harmonization with warning against a “race to digitize” that privileges speed over accountability. With all these contention there is need for human-centric, transparent, and regionally grounded governance frameworks, even as fundamental questions about power, ownership, and justice in the digital era remain far from resolved
Celebrating Progress and Collaboration
The reinvention of the digital commons by governments and partners was highlighted at the Cape Town Summit. From Kenya’s eCitizen and Rwanda’s Irembo to Estonia’s X-Road and India’s India Stack, national experiences demonstrated how integrated digital platforms may enable accessible public services, empower small companies, and foster accountability. It is encouraging that the 2025 edition shifted its focus from technology infrastructure to impact, emphasizing how DPI genuinely improves lives, fortifies governance, and cultivates public confidence. With an emphasis on interoperability, open standards, and participatory governance, partners including UNDP, Co-Develop, and DPGA are guiding discussions toward moral and human-centered digital transformation.
It is admirable that the conference promoted a multi-stakeholder approach. It reiterates that no one entity, be it the government, the private sector, or a donor, can create sustainable DPI on its own. For participants from all throughout Africa and the Global South, the focus on cooperation, capacity building, and regional learning was especially motivating.
Emerging Gaps and Challenges
While the momentum is evident, the discussions also revealed critical gaps that must be addressed to make DPI inclusive and sustainable.
- Governance and Accountability Deficit: The region’s DPI projects are growing more quickly than the governance mechanisms that ought to direct them. Data privacy, interoperability, algorithmic transparency, and governance issues are still not sufficiently addressed. DPI runs the danger of perpetuating current disparities and undermining public confidence in the absence of robust governance systems. Therefore, to protect rights and foster innovation, governments must give top priority to transparent accountability frameworks, legal protections, and public feedback systems.
- Limited End-User Connectedness: Although tremendous technological developments were highlighted in the summit’s discussions, system builders and the citizenry continue to dominate most of the discussion. End users frequently continue to be passive recipients of technology, cut off from decision-making and design processes, especially those living in rural and underprivileged regions. Implementers must incorporate lived experiences and community voices into each stage of development to create a truly inclusive DPI.
- Civil Society Exclusion: Even while civil society’s contribution to advancing digital inclusion is becoming more widely acknowledged, their involvement in DPI projects is still marginal. Despite their vital skills in rights-based governance, accountability, and community mobilization, civil society organizations are frequently left out or invited too late in the process. It is essential to institutionalize organized civil society involvement in the formulation and execution of DPI policies. Their opinions can guarantee that systems continue to be fair, open, and responsive to local demands.
Toward Accountable and Human-Centered DPI
As an advocate working at the intersection of technology and human rights, I left the summit both inspired and challenged. Inspired by the progress made in building open, interoperable, and scalable digital ecosystems; challenged by how we, as a community, can make these systems more accountable, inclusive, and people centered.
To advance this vision, we must collectively:
- Strengthening governance frameworks that safeguard rights and data privacy while fostering innovation.
- Co-create with citizens, ensuring that DPI design processes include users as collaborators, not just beneficiaries.
- Institutionalize multi-stakeholder collaboration, embedding civil society, academia, and community organizations as equal partners in digital policy and infrastructure design.
- Measure impact beyond access, focusing on trust, usability, and meaningful connectivity.
These steps will help ensure that DPI not only accelerates service delivery but also enhances civic participation and public trust, the true measures of a digital society’s maturity.
Way Forward: From Cape Town to the Next Summit
The summit in Cape Town marked a turning point in international collaboration on digital infrastructure and public goods. It is shown that when partners work together in good faith, development routes may be reshaped through shared learning and group creativity. But to maintain this momentum, institutionalized practice must replace high-level discourse.
As we anticipate the upcoming Global DPI Summit, there is a chance to establish specific areas for civil society participation, highlight end-user experiences, and establish regional accountability frameworks that measure actual progress. Inclusion, evidence, and transparency principles that transform digital systems into facilitators of justice and dignity must be the cornerstones of the next stage of international discourse.
Collaboration is the key to the future of digital transformation, according to the 2025 Global DPI Summit. It is admirable that governments, development partners, and IT innovators are working to create an open and reliable digital infrastructure. However, DPI’s promise won’t be fulfilled until its governance considers the variety, rights, and goals of the people it serves. Cape Town served as a potent reminder that digital public infrastructure is about society as much as technology. The call is obvious as we get ready for the next summit: DPI needs to be transparent, responsible, and participatory to be genuinely public.
