September 2020

The Digital GovernmentMapping ProjectLaying the Foundation for a Digital Decade

Tomicah Tillemann, Ben Gregori, & Jordan Sandman

Last edited on September 16, 2020 at 7:29 p.m. EDT

Acknowledgments

We would like to extend a special thanks to ourinterviewees, whose deep perspective into theemerging world of digital government platformsoriented our research:

Govind Shivkumar, Investments Principal,Omidyar Network

Robert Opp, Chief Digital Officer, UnitedNations Development Programme

Kevin O'Neil, Director of Data andTechnology, The Rockefeller Foundation

Lesly Goh, Senior Fellow, Digital Impact andGovernance Initiative

We would especially like to thank the RockefellerFoundation for supporting our work and serving as athought leader on digital transformation.

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About the Author(s)

Dr. Tomicah Tillemann is the founder and director ofthe Blockchain Trust Accelerator and Chair of theResponsible Asset Allocator Initiative (RAAI) at NewAmerica.

Ben Gregori is a policy analyst for the Digital Impactand Governance Initiative (DIGI) and the BlockchainTrust Accelerator (BTA) programs at New America.

Jordan Sandman is a program assistant with theDigital Impact and Governance Initiative and theBlockchain Trust Accelerator at New America.

About New America

We are dedicated to renewing the promise ofAmerica by continuing the quest to realize ournation’s highest ideals, honestly confronting thechallenges caused by rapid technological and socialchange, and seizing the opportunities those changescreate.

About Digital Impact and GovernanceInitiative

The Digital Governance and Impact Initiative (DIGI)develops technology platforms that transform theway institutions deliver value for citizens. We workwith partners in government and the private sector tocreate modular, interoperable technology solutionsbuilt on open source code that address keychallenges facing the public sector.

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Contents

Introduction

Our Approach

Digital Government Platform Tracker

Key Findings

Digital Government Platforms Take Many Shapes

10 Principles for Building a Digital Government Stack

The Work Ahead

Institutional Architecture

Funding Mechanisms

Conclusion

Checklist for Building Digital Government Platforms

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Introduction

Madeleine Albright has observed that most countries are relying on institutions

designed in the nineteenth century and technology from the twentieth century to

solve the challenges of the twenty-first century. In the past, there were few

options for pursuing system-level improvement in the operation of public

institutions outside of political change. However, this dynamic is shifting thanks

to the emergence of a new generation of digital tools that can transform the

delivery of public value for hundreds of millions of individuals at a time.

Developing modular, open source technology platforms that address core public

sector challenges such as validating eligibility for public benefits, collecting

taxes, and tracking revenue can provide profound improvements in public

administration.

Not coincidentally, the governments that have delivered effective responses to

the coronavirus pandemic—South Korea, Estonia, Taiwan, and New Zealand—all

power their institutions with world-class digital platforms. COVID-19 has

accelerated demand for next-generation technology solutions that have the

potential to dramatically improve the provision of government services and help

deliver greater resilience in the face of unprecedented challenges. Unfortunately,

the vast majority of governments have neither the plans nor capacity to build

their own high-quality digital infrastructure. The resulting gaps in digital services

are undermining public health and economic welfare and contributing to

widespread human suffering.

In May 2018, a group of leading experts from the public sector, private sector, and

civil society convened at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center to define

critical government functions that could be upgraded as part of a civic technology

stack. These include foundational systems such as digital identity, data

management, and payments along with an application layer for services

including:

Taxation and public finance

Public benefits

Asset tracking

Land titling

Civic participation and voting

Procurement

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Public registries for vital records and commercial information

As the field has gained momentum since 2018, this conceptual framing has

continued to guide our work and this mapping project.

The Digital Government Mapping Project is a compendium of leading platforms

that policymakers, technologists, civil society leaders, and strategists can

benchmark as they consider how to leverage digital solutions within their

societies. The report also catalogues key insights from existing digital systems

that governments should consider when constructing a civic stack.

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Our Approach

Our primary goal in creating the Digital Government Mapping Project is to equip

policymakers and leaders pursuing systemic digital transformation with a

reference guide to the work of other actors building integrated digital ecosystems

for government services. The Digital Government Mapping Project aims to

accelerate the design and development of governance platforms by helping

technologists and policymakers learn from leaders in this field and lay the

groundwork for future discussions about open standards and platform

interoperability.

Our research approach follows the conceptual architecture of the “digital

government stack” initially discussed at the 2018 Rockefeller Foundation Center

convening in Bellagio, Italy. This framework identifies three foundational layers

of digital protocols (digital identity, data exchange, and digital payments) that

underlie other digital government applications (public registries, land titling,

taxation, procurement, benefits management, and civic participation) and

facilitate government service provision. Since the Bellagio convening, there has

been widespread acknowledgement among government leaders that digital

transformation will be a key driver of economic development and institutional

modernization. Our hope is to help leaders familiarize themselves with this

nascent field.

New America’s Digital Impact and Governance Initiative (DIGI) conducted

informational interviews with stakeholders in philanthropy, multilateral

organizations, and government. The conversations illuminated key

considerations for digital transformation leaders and helped identify platforms of

special interest. Based on these conversations, the DIGI team developed a set of

questions to identify projects that could assist government leaders seeking to

understand different approaches to building a civic stack:

Does the digital government platform address a significant challenge for a

large population?

To what extent is the digital government platform sustained and

legitimized by a political or institutional mandate?

Does the digital government platform have a framework for multi-

stakeholder oversight?

Is the digital government platform backed by institutional funders and

implementers who can support long-term development?

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To what extent does the digital government platform embrace public

benefit technology principles such as open architecture and open data,

interoperability, and open source software?

Based on these considerations, our team conducted research to identify and

catalogue platforms with the greatest potential to inform the work of

policymakers. A number of organizations including Civic Hall, the Digital

Public Goods Alliance, Digital Square, and the Digital Impact Alliance

have assembled impressive field guides that display a broad array of digital

solutions and organizations that leverage technology for social impact. We

encourage readers to explore these resources further to find digital tools to

address social needs such as health, education, and job skills.

Our objective is narrower in scope: we’ve assembled a curated toolbox of digital

government platforms that leaders can reference as they build more effective

institutions. This report does not attempt to delineate the boundaries of the field

or establish a comprehensive framework for how to design and deploy digital

government platforms. Instead, it functions as a Step 0 that we hope can inform

future efforts toward those ends.

The Digital Government Platform Tracker is a catalogue of digital

government platforms that strengthen public institutions. The examples

represent the work of different jurisdictions and organizations to build digital

government platforms that improve public services for their constituents. We

hope the tracker will be a living resource and encourage readers to submit

recommendations of additional digital government platforms that may merit

inclusion.

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Digital Government Platform Tracker

The Digital Government Platform Tracker is a catalogue of digital government

platforms that strengthen public institutions. The examples represent the work of

different jurisdictions and organizations to build digital government platforms

that improve public services for their constituents. We hope the tracker will be a

living resource and encourage readers to submit recommendations of additional

digital government platforms that may merit inclusion.

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Key Findings

The concept of a digital “stack” comes from the world of computing. A software

stack is a group of independent software components that work together to

accomplish a specific task. For example, sending an email requires different

pieces of software to compose the message, connect to the network, transmit the

data, and ultimately reassemble the message for a reader on the other side. Cars

provide a useful analogy: they are made up of different subsystems like

transmissions, engines, stereos, and climate control, which can be exchanged for

different systems if needed. Just as tires can be swapped out depending on

whether to drive on snow or maximize gas mileage, technologists can change out

pieces of a stack without compromising the integrity of the entire system.

Foundational layers of most digital government stacks include digital identity,

data management, and digital payments. These systems provide core

functionality to help manage tasks including public finances, benefits, and

procurement. Similarly, cars can operate without air conditioning or a radio, but

they cannot run without an engine, transmission, or brakes.

Many public services depend on establishing identity, exchanging data, and

transferring resources. For instance, Germany laid the groundwork for their

digital healthcare system by constructing digital infrastructure to share

standardized electronic medical records so that patients, doctors, pharmacies,

and hospitals could leverage a common information network. Germany’s digital

identification and data exchange systems enabled a national coronavirus

response that has proven far more effective than what has been possible in

countries with more fragmented healthcare systems, such as in the United

States.

Though many national digital systems have not collapsed data silos, some

nations are embracing a whole-of-government approach to managing

information. National platforms like Estonia’s X-Road system and the

IndiaStack along with multilateral efforts such as UNDP’s Building Blocks

refugee payment system are pioneering new models for how nations can leverage

and protect citizens’ data. The coronavirus has catalyzed further innovation in

this area. Germany and Switzerland are experimenting with data models that

give individuals control of their information to preserve privacy while still

enabling governments to solve urgent challenges. Ultimately, allowing citizens to

own their personal data while ensuring common data standards to facilitate

interoperability may emerge as a best practice in the field.

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Digital Government Platforms Take Many Shapes

Some governments such as the United Kingdom have built modular and open

source tools for reuse both within and across national governments. Others, such

as in Estonia, Singapore and India, have adopted whole-of-government

approaches to digital government platforms that integrate with civil society and

the private sector systems through APIs and other interoperability enablers. A

growing coalition of governments, private firms, philanthropic actors, and civil

society organizations are beginning to weave together these national efforts to

develop digital platforms into a coherent global movement.

Here are a few examples drawn from our platform tracker:

DHIS2 is the world’s largest health management information system (HMIS). It

is an open source platform used by health facilities, doctors, and clinics in 72 low-

and middle-income countries with national-scale deployments in 58 countries.

DHIS2 can be adapted to a diverse range of local settings and needs while still

exchanging data between different users because it leverages well-established

data standards and open source software. The platform can manage the logistics

of cold-storage transport units for vaccines, monitor the health of pregnant

women in rural communities, and track outbreaks of infectious disease. DHIS2

recently added a module specifically for detecting and managing public health

responses to COVID-19. A global team of software developers maintains DHIS2

by fixing bugs for all users of the software worldwide.

MOSIP, or the Modular, Open Source Identity Platform, is a digital identity

platform that enables countries to build their own identity systems and adapt the

platform to local needs. Thanks to MOSIP’s modular design, countries can

configure unique instances of the software to fit local privacy requirements,

integrate with different partners for credentialing and authentication, and

comply with cybersecurity regulations. MOSIP also works with companies that

manufacture identification tools, such as biometric scanners and electronic

identity cards, to create security standards and accreditation to foster growth and

competition in the identity services industry. MOSIP is currently working with

Morocco, the Philippines, Guinea, Ethiopia, and Sri Lanka. The project is

supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Omidyar Network, and

the TATA Trusts.

UK Notify is an open source tool developed by the U.K. Digital Government

Service to notify constituents of various status updates with government

applications or processes. Since 2016, UK Notify has been adopted by nearly 500

organizations for use in over 1,500 public service applications. The U.S.

Department of Veteran Affairs and Canadian Digital Service are using UK Notify

to deliver pandemic-related public health announcements.

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10 Principles for Building a Digital GovernmentStack

Throughout the research process, our team uncovered an important finding:

there is no single formula for building a digital government platform.

Governments have taken different approaches to building digital public services

from organizing different types of stakeholders to managing varying degrees of

digital accessibility. However, through our research for the Digital Government

Mapping Project and related reports like Building and Reusing Open Source Tools

for Government, a set of common principles arose that seem to help digital

government platforms become success stories.

Source: Sentavio // Shutterstock

1. Modularity

While a handful of countries have built impressive, tightly integrated digital

stacks, these outliers are the exception rather than the rule. Both technically and

politically, it is usually easier and less expensive to create smaller solutions that

can be easily reconfigured and optimized as circumstances change. Just like a set

of Legos, modular platforms can be reassembled to address needs and

opportunities that may not have been anticipated when they were first created.

UK Notify demonstrates these benefits. After the solution was initially deployed

in the UK, it was adapted to meet new challenges by the Australian Digital

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Transformation Agency, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, and the

Canadian Digital Service. Along the way, the system developed new capabilities.

For example, Canadian engineers added French language support to the original

tool. Doing so not only fulfilled a national mandate to make the software

available in French and English, but also provided new functionality that the UK

and French-speaking communities might be able to draw on in the future. The

flexibility of modular solutions is a huge advantage at a time when technology

and public needs are both evolving rapidly.

2. Open Source

Most of the work performed by governments is similar regardless of whether it is

in New York, New Delhi, or Freetown. Almost all governments have to provide

public benefits and services, collect taxes, maintain registries, and carry out a

pretty well-defined set of other responsibilities that could be streamlined using

technology. As the example above illustrates, governments are slowly waking up

to the opportunity to develop and share open source solutions to power the public

sector rather than building duplicative solutions of varying quality. Along with

modular design, open source development can help governments cooperate to

develop best-in-class solutions, adapt them to meet their own needs, and quickly

scale them across borders to benefit other communities at minimal extra cost.

One of the benefits of open source development is that it allows civil society to

examine the systems governments implement and point out design flaws,

security risks, and threats to privacy and civil rights. A contact tracing app

deployed in India was found to have numerous security bugs and led public

authorities to open source the code for additional review by the global security

community. Since then, hundreds of security flaws have been identified and fixed

thanks to the power of crowdsourced engineering talent made possible by open

source. DIGI’s Building and Reusing Open Source Tools in Government report

provides a guide for how open source solutions can foster innovation in the public

sector.

3. Ethical Design

Far more than companies and customers, governments have a responsibility to

look after the interests of their citizens. That includes prioritizing privacy when

deploying digital government platforms. In the same way nuclear power can light

up a city or destroy it, and steel can build hospitals or machetes, digital platforms

can advance human dignity or undermine human rights. Regional models for

data governance have solidified in the United States, EU, and China, but

almost every week brings new reports highlighting the failings of these

frameworks.

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In the same way responsible governments use checks and balances to prevent the

abuse of power in carrying out policy, public sector technology systems must

guard against bad actors using well-intentioned systems to exploit those who use

them.

4. Multi-stakeholder Governance

The task of protecting citizens’ interests on digital platforms is too important to

be left to government alone. Communities should rely on multi-stakeholder

oversight when developing and deploying new technologies.

Multi-stakeholder bodies can inspect technology systems before they are

deployed to check for algorithmic biases, dangerous governance models, or other

unintended consequences. Decentralizing control of technology systems adds a

layer of complexity to governance, but also offers crucial safeguards against

potential abuse.

5. User Ownership of Data

Individuals often cede control of personal information to private firms or

government bodies that exploit it for financial or political purposes. Centralized

data models create opportunities for those with access to private information to

not only surveil individual activities, but also manipulate user behavior. As

governments begin to leverage digital platforms to power their institutions, they

should help citizens’ own and control their personal data. Societies may need to

rethink data ownership and data protection rules to realize this goal.

Placing users at the center of public data architecture could give individuals more

autonomy over how private firms, governments, and researchers use sensitive

personal information. Some emerging models, such as the “Data for Common

Purpose” initiative developed by the World Economic Forum, are laying the

groundwork for public-interest data frameworks that will enable societies to

harness the power of big data while still granting individuals more control. Data

trusts can also help negotiate on consumers’ behalf to rectify information

asymmetries and help individuals monetize the value of their data or maintain

higher degrees of privacy. Governments should look to the World Economic

Forum’s recently released Presidio Principles for an innovative new values

framework on how to reassert individuals’ rights and build more decentralized,

resilient data models.

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6. Interoperability

Individual digital platforms are proving how digital solutions can revolutionize

the delivery of public value. But digital systems will be much more powerful if

they are combined into an integrated set of systems that create a whole greater

than the sum of its parts. If governments embrace common standards and data

portability protocols they could facilitate the development of a broader range of

interoperable platforms for the delivery of public value.

The Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) addressed this

challenge by building APEX, a centralized API exchange designed to enable

government agencies to share information between their data silos and

externally with private entities. APIs make it easier and more secure to share

data. A project named MyInfo uses APIs to share data between government

agencies and banks when new customers open an account. MyInfo not only

provides a better, faster experience for the user but also reduces costs for banks

and deters data theft. MyInfo has been integrated into Singapore's National

Digital Identity platform, which accelerates business-to-business transactions

through use of government-verified data and equips citizens with a secure login

interface for private and public digital services. Tools that bolster interoperability

can eliminate inefficiencies and create safer data ecosystems for users,

businesses, and governments.

7. User-centered Design

Policymakers should include users in the process of designing, testing, and

improving digital platforms for the public sector. User-centric design principles

draw expertise and opinions from the communities affected by digital tools, and

bring them into the design effort to ensure that all groups, particularly

marginalized communities, have a voice in how tools are developed and

deployed. Collaborative human-centric design processes lead to more inclusive

digital tools and reduce the risk of unintentional harm.

The State of New Jersey, the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at

Rutgers University, and DIGI’s team at New America sought to create a platform

to help residents experiencing joblessness find their way back to employment.

User research revealed that re-entering the workforce can feel overwhelming, so

the designers developed features to break up the job application process into

manageable tasks and guide the user through the stress of job searching. The

State's Office of Innovation led multiple rounds of testing with small groups of

job seekers to incorporate their feedback into the final design of the platform. By

leveraging user-centric design principles, we developed a tool that caters

specifically to the needs of the citizens it was designed to serve.

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8. Digital Equity

As governments build digital platforms, they should explicitly plan to meet the

needs of people with limited access to the internet or digital technology. Digital

transformation has the potential to increase inequities with digitally-

marginalized populations.

Governments should build public utilities such as APIs and adoption training that

not only increase access to services, but ensure that all communities can benefit

from innovation. The Indian Government pursued this path when they created

the NUUP, a banking protocol that enables mobile phone users to transmit

banking information over GSM networks. The NUUP provides banking services

to users of cell phones who otherwise would have been excluded from the access

to financial services made possible by the smartphone-native BHIM app.

Governments worldwide should explore methods to layer analog and digital

systems to ensure that communities with varying access to digital tools will not

be left behind by digital transformation.

9. Building for Resilience

The speed with which the coronavirus pandemic crippled the global economy,

buckled healthcare systems, and crushed national pandemic response plans has

created a resilience crisis that is engulfing public institutions. Unemployment

insurance in many U.S. states is a case in point. Citizens filing for benefits in the

middle of the pandemic were asked to find fax machines to submit forms that

were then processed using COBOL, a programming language that has been

obsolete for decades. This archaic process made it difficult for anyone to access

benefits and excluded many marginalized populations completely.

One of the advantages of using digital services is that they can foster resilience

by providing multiple, redundant pathways to access public services. From low-

cost telemedicine as a fallback when in-person care is unavailable to digital and

mail-in balloting to supplement in-person voting, the principle of optionality

should apply to all essential services. Providing citizens with multiple paths to

access vital services creates safeguards when things go wrong. Digital platforms

not only expedite inefficient analog service delivery processes but also create

intentional redundancies to reduce risk when analog systems fail.

10. Design for High and Low Digital Capacity

The pandemic has illustrated that digital capacity does not necessarily follow

traditional indexes of development. While the United States mailed paper

stimulus checks to 70 million Americans, governments in Pakistan, Argentina,

and Peru leveraged digital payments systems that support more than one third

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of their populations. Modular, open source digital public infrastructure can allow

emerging markets to adopt next-generation systems that allow them to leapfrog a

generation of development and also help countries with antiquated legacy

systems catch up.

As coalitions and innovators begin to produce digital public goods to build more

effective institutions, they should try to ensure that their solutions can be

adapted to work in different contexts with varying levels of digital capacity.

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The Work Ahead

The diplomat Dean Acheson wrote of being “present at the creation” as

representatives from across the world came together to build a new generation of

institutions and solutions following the Second World War. In the shadow of a

catastrophic global crisis, leaders realized they needed to renovate the

foundational structures of society. Communities had just experienced the

devastation that accompanies the collapse of public institutions, and there was

global resolve to prevent such a horrific crisis from recurring. The global

architecture that emerged from that moment — including the United Nations and

the Bretton Woods institutions — is still with us 75 years later. It has helped save

generations from the scourge of another world war. As we survey the hundreds of

thousands of lives we have lost to the coronavirus pandemic, we have reached an

analogous moment; today, we need social and institutional innovation of a

similar magnitude. Realizing this vision will require sustained focus on and

investment in two areas: establishing institutional architecture to support these

efforts and creating innovative funding models to ensure the financial viability

and sustainability of this work.

Institutional Architecture

In government, staffing is policy. The governments that have been most

successful at deploying digital government platforms in their institutions

typically devote specific ministries and departments to the task of improving the

quality of their public sector technology. Organizations such as Finland and

Estonia’s Nordic Institute for Interoperability, India’s Unique Identification

Authority, South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT, and Canada’s Digital

Academy offer examples of institutions that coordinate resources, talent, and

strategies to accelerate the development of next-generation digital public

infrastructure.

Every country should build domestic governmental capacity to help guide their

public institutions in employing technology. There is a massive institutional gap

in most countries, including the United States, that have not designated specific

governmental bodies to develop overarching plans to deploy public sector

technology. The need for more coordination on digital public infrastructure is

particularly acute in federal political systems that devolve responsibility for

administering public programs like benefits distribution and identity

management to state and local authorities. But governments of all sizes could

benefit from a Department or Ministry of Innovation and Technology. These

coordinating bodies can break down data silos between government agencies,

create a cross-agency national digital public infrastructure strategy, educate

government officials on the merits and risks of next-generation digital systems,

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and channel staffing to increase the capacity of the public sector to build and

integrate new systems.

At the same time, there is a growing need for new multilateral institutions to

develop, host, and deploy digital platforms for public institutions. Pioneering

partnerships including the Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Digital Impact

Alliance, and the Prosperity Collaborative are demonstrating the importance

of collaboration in this area. As authoritarian countries develop tightly integrated

digital surveillance systems, it will be critical to offer alternatives based on

accountability and transparency. Multilateral institutions can help establish best

practices for responsible use, share open source solutions across the public

sector, and establish standards for interoperability.

Funding Mechanisms

Governments, technologists, civil society, and philanthropic institutions should

begin exploring new models to fund the development and deployment of digital

public infrastructure. Digital government platforms will require funding

mechanisms that incentivize sustained investment, iterative improvement, and

public accountability. Hitting this trifecta is a tall order. However, broader use of

open source solutions coupled with greater international coordination could

enable countries rich and poor to build far more effective technology systems at a

fraction of the cost of their current technology outlays. The federal government

in the U.S. alone spends nearly $100 billion on public sector technology each

year.

Early ventures in creating open digital ecosystems and international public-

private partnerships illuminate how innovative funding models can sustainably

finance digital government platforms. A recent report by the Omidyar Network

and Boston Consulting Group observes that digital identity platforms Aadhaar

and MOSIP used public and philanthropic funds to finance initial development

and deployment, and later began charging fees for businesses to access the

benefits of an established digital identity ecosystem. Other models like Estonia’s

e-Residency platform allocate resources to the platform from the cost-savings

generated through more efficient government services. In the public health

sector, the global vaccine alliance Gavi corrects market failures by pooling

demand from low income countries and coordinating vaccine production to

lower inoculation costs. Economic growth catalyzed by better public health

enables developing countries to co-finance their vaccines. Coalitions of

governments, funders, and civil society organizations could guide the technology

industry towards better social outcomes by adopting such a model.

Due to the long lifetimes of these projects, innovative finance mechanisms could

also induce pension funds and sovereign wealth funds to invest in public

technology platforms. Already, there are compelling models such as Ontario’s

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land registry that provide examples of how pension funds could provide the up-

front liquidity necessary to develop world class technology and later benefit from

long-term, stable financial returns. Hybrid models that use philanthropic capital

to de-risk early stage platform development and long-term public and

institutional investment to support deployment and maintenance could enable

rapid scaling of successful systems.

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Conclusion

It’s time to launch a Digital Decade. Over the next 10 years, technologists and

global leaders should work together to develop and deploy modular, open source,

interoperable technology platforms to power the public sector. The UN

Secretary-General Data Strategy has already called for realizing the potential

of data to inform policy decisions and build stronger communities in a “Decade

of Action.” That objective will depend on having high quality digital technology

platforms powering public institutions.

The work ahead will be immensely complex and challenging. However, forging

an ecosystem of open source solutions for improving governance presents one of

the most important opportunities of our time, easily on par with the Green

Revolution, mass vaccination, and other great public health interventions of the

20th century in its potential impact. Indeed, fixing broken public institutions may

be the only pathways to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

The vision for this movement is increasingly clear. However, building such a

movement won’t be easy. And, even under the best scenarios, the task of creating

modular, open source platforms to power the public sector will lead to a journey,

not a destination.

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Checklist for Building Digital GovernmentPlatforms

Modularity - Building monolithic single-use systems wastes time, money, and

engineering talent. Modular systems enable governments to deploy solutions

more quickly and efficiently. The public sector needs a greater focus on

developing common standards in order to realize the full potential of this

approach.

Open Source - Using open source code helps governments cooperate to develop

best-in-class solutions, adapt platforms to meet community needs, and scale

solutions to benefit more people at minimal extra cost.

Ethical Design - Governments should prioritize security and privacy when

designing and deploying digital platforms. Policymakers must design public

sector technology systems with checks and balances to prevent bad actors from

using well-intentioned systems to invade privacy and erode trust.

Multi-stakeholder Governance - Providing responsible oversight of digital

infrastructure is too important to be left to governments alone. Civil society,

academia, and the private sector all have a role in ensuring that public technology

platforms are used responsibly. Governments should hardwire critical

technology systems with multi-stakeholder governance to prevent abuse both at

the time of deployment and by future administrations.

User Ownership of Data - Current data models both in the private sector and

authoritarian countries are highly centralized. Societies need to rethink data

ownership and empower users to control their own personal data. A user-

centered data model could allow more equal access to data insights while

preventing government and private sector overreach.

Interoperability - An integrated set of digital government platforms could

create a result that is greater than the sum of its parts. If governments embrace

common standards and data portability protocols they could facilitate the

development of a broader range of interoperable platforms that empower

individuals and improve the delivery of public value.

User-centered Design - Public sector technologists should include users in the

process of designing, testing, and improving digital platforms. Collaborative

human-centric design processes lead to more inclusive digital tools and reduce

the risk of unintentional harm.

Digital Equity - Digital transformation has the potential to increase inequities

due to the digital divide that affects digitally-illiterate populations and resource-

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deprived communities. Governments should build tools that ensure those with

varying access to technology can benefit from digital transformation.

Building for Resilience - Digital services foster resilience by providing new

avenues to accessing public services. Governments should build redundancy into

their digital tools by layering them atop analog systems to reduce risk and

prevent single-point-of-failure vulnerabilities.

Design for High and Low Digital Capacity - Digital infrastructure varies

between countries. Coalitions and innovators should ensure that their solutions

are sufficiently modular and adaptable to different contexts so they can scale to

jurisdictions that have lower levels of technological capacity.

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Notes

1 “Software Stack.” PC Magazine. Retrieved 10September 2020. https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/software-stack

2 “Germany expanding digitisation with the newDigital Care Act.” Health Europa. Pan EuropeanNetworks Ltd. Published 23 July 2019. https://www.healtheuropa.eu/germany-expanding-digitisation-with-the-new-digital-care-act/92510/

3 Kliff, Sarah and Sanger-Katz, Margot. “Bottleneckfor U.S. Coronavirus Response: The Fax Machine.”New York Times. Published 13 July 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/upshot/coronavirus-response-fax-machines.html

4 Open Digital Ecosystems. Omidyar Network India.Accessed 10 September 2020. https://opendigitalecosystems.net/

5 Dhis2. Accessed 10 September 2020. https://www.dhis2.org

6 COVID-19 Surveillance Digital Data Package.DHIS2. Accessed 10 September 2020. https://www.dhis2.org/covid-19

7 Cabinet Office et al.”Government’s streamlinedmessaging service to save taxpayer £175m.” GOV.UK.Government Digital Service. Published 26 September2019. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/governments-streamlined-messaging-service-to-save-taxpayer-175m

8 Cull, Bob et al. “We would like to hear from you:Launching online consultations for WorldDevelopment Report 2021 - Data for Better LivesConcept Note.” World Bank Blogs. World Bank.Published 6 May 2020. https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/we-would-hear-you-launching-online-consultations-world-development-report-2021-data-better

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