The digital public infrastructure (DPI) approach is no longer just an idea on paper. Today, good DPI is helping address socio-economic problems at a population scale. By combining open technology standards with robust governance frameworks, DPI encourages public and private innovation.
As governments roll out functioning, nationwide digital systems, DPI is becoming more than a policy trend: it’s rapidly transforming the digital transformation marketplace. In this context, a small group of philanthropic funders is influencing some of the early calls. These decisions carry weight, as they’re defining the architecture, priorities, and politics of the next generation of public services and the digital economy.
This isn’t just a policy shift, it’s a new digital economy emerging, with new players, new incentives, and new power dynamics.
As DPI gains traction, philanthropic funding is accelerating the pace - but also raising tough questions about control, equity, and influence.
As governments look for scalable, adaptable DPI solutions, digital public goods (DPGs) are gaining momentum. Characterized by open-source software, open standards, open data, open AI systems, and open content collections, DPGs adhere to privacy and other applicable best practices, and, most importantly, do no harm. These digital innovations offer a path to avoid vendor lock-in, reduce value extraction by dominant players, and promote more transparent, interoperable, and customizable core infrastructures.
For governments, open source holds the promise of digital sovereignty: control over their own digital foundations without being locked into proprietary tools or commercial terms they can’t negotiate. In this context, key players such as the Gates Foundation, CoDevelop, and Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies are placing big bets on this future, funding DPGs that can accelerate DPI implementation.
But this strategic investment comes with trade-offs. When a small group of funders drives which DPGs get attention and traction, they can unintentionally crowd out other viable alternatives. Over time, the ecosystem faces the risk of reflecting funders’ priorities more than governments’ needs. This pitfall feels especially pressing now, as global development funding faces radical cuts and growing uncertainty, making every decision about what gets built -and backed- more important.
That’s the tension: DPGs can get caught between responding to real-world implementation challenges and staying financially viable. If fundraising incentives dominate, innovation risks becoming supply-driven instead of policy-driven.
When it comes to DPG investment, early decisions can have lasting impacts going forward.
Particularly in the Global South, a small group of major philanthropic funders is playing a critical role in shaping early choices. Their support is enabling innovation: unlike development banks or public institutions, especially in fiscally constrained settings, these funders can afford to take on more risk. Their support can enable bold, experimental approaches that public budgets often can’t, giving governments more space to test, fail, learn, and adapt.
Yet, early decisions matter in a new space like this, and innovation shapes a direction. Once governments, donors, and implementers align behind specific standards, technologies, or platforms, it’s difficult to reverse course. We’ve seen this in other technology trajectories: path dependence kicks in. The choices made today -who gets funded, what gets scaled, which tech stack dominates- are likely to shape what’s possible tomorrow.
This is especially true when infrastructure becomes invisible. Take identity systems, for example. Once a government adopts a particular digital ID solution (whether open source or proprietary), it becomes embedded in everything from welfare delivery to tax collection. Changing it later means reengineering entire workflows and retraining agencies, not to mention renegotiating vendor relationships. That’s not just expensive; it’s politically risky.
Advancing a balanced approach to DPG funding can help foster healthy competition – and promote effective, trusted DPI.
We won’t overcome these challenges overnight, and there’s no silver bullet. But one thing is clear: we need a funding approach that puts governments at the center.
While there’s already important momentum to align innovation with public needs, the balance still tilts too often toward supply-driven incentives. To ensure DPI ecosystems evolve in ways that reflect government priorities and implementation realities, funders should consider the following adjustments:
On the demand side:
- Balance supply- and demand-side investments. For example, funders could provide governments with “DPI vouchers” to use on certain DPGs of their choice. This allows them to choose from vetted tools without navigating complex procurement or grant processes, thus making investment more demand-led.
- Include governments in funding decisions. Giving policymakers a seat at the table, such as in investment committees, creates an important feedback loop. It also helps align priorities: governments better understand what’s available, and funders get clearer signals from the field.
And on the supply side:
- Fund a portfolio; don’t pick the winner. Even within the same DPI building block—like credentials, identity, or registries—it’s healthy to support multiple open source projects. A diverse landscape creates healthy competition, more choice for governments, and faster iteration.
- Invest in a transparent marketplace. Governments need visibility into what tools exist, how they perform, and which are being used elsewhere. Funders can support initiatives that help governments discover the full range of available DPGs, incentivize feedback and review mechanisms, and create open comparison tools. This kind of marketplace infrastructure can shift power toward informed, demand-led decisions, and away from defaulting to the most well-resourced option.
- Break vertical integrations. A DPG may steward the core codebase, but many roles are involved in DPI implementation. Funders can support a broader ecosystem—contributors, implementers, local vendors, researchers, evangelists, and tech advisors—to build on and around these tools, reducing over-reliance on any single actor.
- Ensure this ecosystem is rooted locally. Prioritizing local companies and implementers can help dynamize national tech markets, ensure better alignment with country-specific needs, and foster sustainable capacity for adaptation and maintenance over time.
The goal isn’t to slow innovation down, it’s to help DPI grow in the right direction: government-led, inclusive by design, and accountable to the people it serves.
This expert comment is the first of a series —and previews an upcoming white paper— focused on real-world lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean about implementing open-source solutions for DPI. It’s grounded in 15 interviews with policymakers, technologists, and implementers across the region who’ve been directly involved in these efforts.
