Networking Session #37 Mapping the DPI stakeholders?

Summary

This discussion focused on multi-stakeholder engagement in Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) development, examining how governments, technology providers, and civil society can collaborate effectively in building shared digital systems. The panel brought together perspectives from government implementation, technology development, and civil society advocacy to explore the complexities of stakeholder mapping and engagement in DPI initiatives.

Chinthaka Ekanayake from Sri Lanka’s government highlighted the importance of systematic stakeholder mapping, noting how it helps optimize resource allocation and enhance collaboration among diverse actors within and outside government. He emphasized that DPI requires departments to work together in new ways around shared infrastructure, which presents both opportunities and political challenges. Max Kintisch discussed the role of technology providers, particularly the emergence of open-source and digital public goods consortia that champion interoperability and inclusiveness. He identified key challenges including funding volatility, commercial viability of open solutions, and the need for sustainable business models that maintain public interest while ensuring long-term maintenance of critical infrastructure components.

Susan Mwape addressed civil society’s role, emphasizing the need for inclusion by design rather than tokenistic consultation. She identified trust as the biggest factor, noting that civil society often distrusts government due to histories of exclusion and surveillance, while governments view civil society as obstructive. The discussion highlighted the importance of addressing power imbalances, technical capacity gaps, and misaligned priorities between efficiency-focused government goals and rights-focused civil society concerns. Audience contributions emphasized the critical role of media, religious and traditional leaders, and the need for extensive consultation, particularly regarding digital literacy and access issues. The conversation underscored that successful DPI implementation requires transparent, inclusive processes that build trust through openness, constructive dialogue, and recognition of diverse stakeholder needs and contexts.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Multi-stakeholder engagement challenges in DPI implementation**: The complexity of coordinating between government departments, private sector tech providers, and civil society organizations, with emphasis on moving beyond siloed approaches to shared infrastructure development.

– **Role and sustainability of tech providers in DPI ecosystems**: Discussion of how open-source digital public goods (DPGs) can maintain public interest while achieving commercial viability, including funding challenges and the need for government co-ownership and procurement reform.

– **Civil society inclusion and trust-building**: The critical need for meaningful (not tokenistic) participation of civil society from the design phase, addressing power imbalances, capacity constraints, and misaligned priorities between efficiency-focused governments and rights-focused civil society.

– **Contextual adaptation and localization of DPI solutions**: Recognition that there are no one-size-fits-all approaches to DPI, with specific discussion of how countries like Sri Lanka need tailored strategies that build on existing infrastructure rather than replacing it entirely.

– **Transparency, digital literacy, and stakeholder communication**: The importance of comprehensive consultation processes that include traditional leaders, media, and marginalized communities, coupled with addressing digital literacy gaps and ensuring human rights-respecting implementation.

## Overall Purpose:

This discussion was part of a consultation process to understand how stakeholder engagement can be best supported within Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) processes. The session aimed to gather insights from government, tech providers, and civil society perspectives to inform better multi-stakeholder approaches to DPI development and implementation.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a collaborative and constructive tone throughout, with participants openly acknowledging challenges while offering practical solutions. The conversation was professional yet candid, with speakers honestly addressing difficulties like trust deficits, funding volatility, and implementation barriers. The tone remained solution-oriented, with participants building on each other’s insights and sharing real-world examples from their experiences across different countries and sectors.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Chinthaka Ekanayake**: Government official from Sri Lanka with technical background, involved in digital ID projects and DPI implementation

– **Emrys Schoemaker**: Session moderator/facilitator, appears to work on DPI stakeholder engagement and consultation processes

– **Susan Mwape**: Civil society representative from Zambia, works on digital rights and civil society engagement in DPI processes

– **Max Kintisch**: Works with tech providers and organizations developing software/tools for DPI, focuses on digital public goods and open source solutions

– **Vivian Affoah**: Works at Media Foundation for West Africa based in Ghana, focuses on digital rights and freedom of expression, runs Digital Public Infrastructure Journalism Fellowship

– **Audience**: Multiple audience members who asked questions during the session

**Additional speakers:**

– **Nandifa**: Advocate from University of South Africa, participated virtually, expertise in extractive industry and stakeholder engagement

– **Abraham**: Based in Geneva and Austria, member of UNCTAD working group on data governance

– **Pamod**: From DHS2 (appears to be DHIS2), asked questions specific to Sri Lanka context regarding DPI promotion and adoption

# Multi-Stakeholder Engagement in Digital Public Infrastructure Development: Discussion Report

## Executive Summary

This discussion, moderated by Emrys Schoemaker, brought together perspectives from government implementation, technology provision, and civil society advocacy to examine multi-stakeholder engagement in Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) development. The session featured Chinthaka Ekanayake from Sri Lanka’s government, Max Kintisch representing technology providers, Susan Mwape from civil society, and Vivian Affoah from the Media Foundation for West Africa.

Key themes included the importance of systematic stakeholder mapping, challenges in building trust between different stakeholder groups, sustainability issues for technology providers, the need for meaningful rather than tokenistic civil society participation, and the critical role of contextualised implementation that considers local conditions and existing systems.

## Government Perspective: Systematic Mapping and Internal Coordination

Chinthaka Ekanayake outlined the governmental approach to DPI stakeholder engagement, emphasising systematic stakeholder mapping as essential for effective implementation. He explained that proper stakeholder identification helps optimise resource allocation and enhance collaboration among diverse actors both within and outside government structures.

Ekanayake highlighted that DPI implementation requires government departments to work together in new ways around shared infrastructure, representing a departure from traditional siloed approaches. “Clear mapping of priorities facilitates targeted intervention and better resource allocation, optimising grants and enhancing stakeholder collaboration,” he noted.

For trust-building, Ekanayake described comprehensive approaches including public relations communication plans, awareness programmes, and experience centres. He specifically mentioned Sri Lanka’s digital ID project, which includes plans for experience centres where citizens can interact with the technology before implementation to build familiarity and trust.

However, he acknowledged significant policy challenges, particularly around procurement reform. Embedding open-source principles in procurement policies requires parliamentary approval and represents a substantial shift in how government approaches technology acquisition.

## Technology Provider Challenges: Sustainability and Impact Measurement

Max Kintisch provided an overview of the technology provider landscape, noting that approximately 70 countries are currently implementing digital public goods, with tech providers intervening at various levels including open standards, software code, and infrastructure development. He identified the emergence of open-source and digital public goods consortia that champion interoperability and inclusiveness.

Kintisch highlighted several critical challenges facing technology providers. Funding volatility from philanthropic sources represents a major concern, as many providers depend on grant funding that can shift based on donor priorities. He posed the question: “How do we insulate vendors who are working on critical infrastructural components from shifts in philanthropic and grant funding interests?”

A significant challenge he identified was the lack of visibility into deployment impact. Most vendors don’t know where their code is deployed, for what purposes, what it costs, or how it’s being implemented. This creates difficulties in measuring impact and securing continued funding.

To address these challenges, Kintisch advocated for shifting from a “build and deploy” mindset to a “build, own and maintain” approach supported by government co-funding and open-source procurement principles. He cited Cambodia’s universal access fund funding XROAD as an example of how governments can co-fund digital public goods. He also mentioned the HIST network and DHIS2 platform as examples of successful ecosystem approaches.

Kintisch emphasised that open-source solutions allow everyone to examine code and solutions, increasing trust through technical transparency.

## Civil Society Perspective: Strategic Partnership and Rights Protection

Susan Mwape identified trust as the biggest factor in successful multi-stakeholder engagement, noting that civil society often distrusts government due to histories of exclusion and surveillance, whilst governments frequently view civil society as obstructive rather than constructive.

Mwape emphasised the need for “inclusion by design” rather than treating civil society as an agenda item. “Instead of treating civil society as an agenda item… it’s important to look at them as strategic partners. And then the issue of influence in the design process needs to be taken with a lot of seriousness, so that when consultations are made, participation of civil society is not tokenistic, but more strategic.”

She identified key challenges including power dynamics that limit influence, priorities misalignment between efficiency-focused government goals and rights-focused civil society concerns, and technical capacity constraints that prevent meaningful participation in complex technical discussions.

Mwape highlighted the DPI Safeguards initiative, which works like the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) model to provide opportunities for diverse stakeholders to engage in constructive dialogue across different environments. She noted that civil society can add value through transparent, inclusive, rights-respecting approaches.

She provided specific examples of civil society legal challenges, including the Kenyan Huduma Namba case and work by the Nubian Rights Forum, demonstrating how civil society maintains accountability roles whilst engaging collaboratively.

## Media and Community Engagement: Bridging Grassroots and Policy

Vivian Affoah highlighted how governments often lack adequate consultation in DPI development, leading to issues with digital literacy, access barriers, and exclusion from services. She provided specific examples from Ghana and Nigeria, where people register for ID cards but don’t receive them, leading to exclusion from banking and SIM card services.

Affoah emphasised the importance of traditional and religious leaders in community acceptance: “Traditional leaders, religious leaders, some of these, when you come to some of our countries in the global majority, a lot of people listen to their imams, they listen to their religious leaders, they listen to traditional leaders. If a chief says, do not go out to register, people will not go.”

She noted that media serves as a key stakeholder in bringing marginalised community issues to the fore and monitoring policy implementation. She also highlighted practical barriers including digital literacy gaps, where many people cannot access digital payment platforms because they lack the knowledge to use them.

## Audience Contributions

The discussion included valuable audience participation. Nandifa from the University of South Africa suggested learning from the extractive industry’s “license to operate” frameworks, which require comprehensive community engagement for security and functionality.

Abraham, working with UNCTAD’s working group on data governance, raised concerns about participation and trust in multi-stakeholder working groups, noting reluctance from both government officials and civil society to engage in UN-level processes.

Pamod from DHIS2 raised questions about contextualisation, asking how much adaptation is needed when promoting DPI in countries that already have functional analog systems. Using Sri Lanka as an example, where citizens already have access to IDs and banking services, he questioned the universal applicability of DPI value propositions.

## Key Challenges Identified

Several significant challenges emerged from the discussion:

**Sustainability for Technology Providers**: The tension between maintaining public interest and ensuring commercial viability, particularly given dependence on volatile philanthropic funding.

**Trust-Building**: Overcoming histories of exclusion, surveillance, and data misuse whilst addressing government perceptions of civil society as obstructive.

**Technical Capacity**: Addressing gaps in civil society’s ability to meaningfully engage with complex DPI discussions.

**Meaningful Participation**: Moving beyond tokenistic consultation whilst managing practical constraints of development timelines and resources.

**Digital Literacy**: Addressing low digital literacy and internet penetration in contexts where DPI is being implemented.

## Practical Approaches Discussed

Despite the challenges, speakers identified several practical approaches:

– Government co-funding of digital public goods through mechanisms like universal access funds

– Adopting “building with” rather than “building for” approaches

– Using multi-stakeholder platforms like the IGF model for dialogue

– Implementing open-source first principles in procurement

– Starting DPI implementation from existing capabilities rather than imposing entirely new systems

– Engaging traditional and religious leaders in community outreach

## Conclusion

The discussion revealed the complexity of multi-stakeholder engagement in DPI development, highlighting both significant challenges and practical approaches for addressing them. While speakers identified common concerns around trust, sustainability, and meaningful participation, they also demonstrated various strategies for building effective partnerships across government, technology providers, civil society, and communities.

The emphasis on contextualisation and the importance of understanding local power structures, existing systems, and community dynamics suggests that successful DPI implementation requires flexible, locally-adapted approaches rather than standardised models. The discussion highlighted both the potential for constructive collaboration and the ongoing work needed to build trust and ensure inclusive, sustainable DPI development.

Emrys Schoemaker: ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

Chinthaka Ekanayake: ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ And also the clear mapping of the priorities and then facilitated target intervention resulting better allocation of resources, because it’s like basically I would say like you can optimize the grants and resources. And enhanced collaboration with the among stakeholders, this structured approach not streamline our process and also contribute achieving our goals and effectively.

Emrys Schoemaker: Thank you, Chintaka. And I’m really struck by the complexity of the stakeholder landscape that you described. And I think it’s often surprising, we often forget that certainly within government, it’s not a monolith. And we often think that government is, that’s the government, that’s the private sector, that’s civil society. What you described I think is the complexity of both internal and external stakeholders and internally. I think what I hear in what you say, one of the challenges of a DPI approach is if you have shared infrastructure that’s shared across different departments, that’s a big change in the way these different stakeholders within government have to work together. And I think that’s a really important thing for us to remember as we think about how to enable those processes to work well. And the politics of that, it’s not always easy. Stepping outside of government, Max, you work a lot with organizations and people who are developing software and products and tools that are used within a DPI journey. What’s your perspective on the role of tech providers and the kind of ways in which they might engage with the DPI journey that countries go on?

Max Kintisch: So let me start by first thanking you for the kind invitation and the opportunity to speak to you on that very important topic. And indeed, we are working with a lot of tech providers, and tech providers intervene at various different levels on digital public infrastructures, be it by providing open standards, providing the very code and software, and even the brick and mortar infrastructure. There’s a multiplicity of different layers at which we can have suppliers intervene. Now, DPI is complex. It’s big. So traditionally, there’s governments or large IT companies that have been involved in that. But we have recently seen, I would say, a wave of open source and digital public goods-based consortia as providers of these solutions. And I would just like to start by enumerating some of the key characteristics here. So they’re open, they’re reusable, adaptable, they champion principles like interoperability, privacy by design, inclusiveness. And what’s very important here as well is they very often are designed for emerging economies or by stakeholders in these economies. These consortia enter in various different roles in the provision of DPI, so be that in the actual platform development, in the ecosystem collaboration, in the maintenance of those products. And according to our data, approximately 70 countries globally are implementing DPGs as part of their core digital identity, digital payment, or data exchange layers. Now, they hold great potential, but there’s also a couple of challenges I want to speak about. First of all, we need to speak about funding volatility in that context. So a lot of those vendors are dependent on philanthropic and grant money to execute their products, and therefore they are subject to also shifts in the interests of those stakeholders. So how do we insulate those vendors who are working on those critical infrastructural components from those changes? A very important topic. Secondly, the second challenge I want to speak about is really the commercial viability of those modular interoperable open solutions. And I want to be precise here. We’re not really talking only about open source in that context, because many companies have been thriving on the basis of open source to drive business success. So it’s not about open source. It’s really the question here really is about how we can safeguard the public interest, the publicness of that solution via a commercially viable sustainable model. So how can we make sure that those companies can maintain the core code basis of those solutions and allow others to work on them? And lastly, and that also connects a bit to the idea of stakeholders, it’s also important to talk about the visibility of the impact of those solutions. And while it’s very easy to deploy those solutions at speed, most of those vendors don’t know where their code is deployed, for what purposes, what it costs, and how it’s being done. And that’s a huge challenge if you are looking for funding and measuring impact. So I think this resumes well the challenges that there are. There’s a couple of practices I want to speak about that I want to say are emerging practices that point into the right direction. First of all, on the countryside, we’ve increasingly seen countries taking co-ownership, co-funding of those products. And I want to point to the example, for instance, of Cambodia, who via their universal access fund has been funding a critical layer of the DPI based on XROAD. Secondly, it will also be important to talk about the role of procurement in that context. So fostering open-source first principles in procurement is an important aspect to create a level playing field between DPGs and private sector companies in that field. And lastly, let me mention also that it’s also not necessarily about building for, but building with as an approach. So fostering partnerships, creating synergies with your vendor ecosystems is a very important and crucial aspect in making those solutions sustainable and operationalizable. And a primary example here is the HIST network, which is the ecosystem and network that is maintaining one of the largest health platforms globally, which is called DHIS2. So in a nutshell, digital public goods have a great potential to enable transparent interoperable open source digital public infrastructure, but we need to address a couple of structural challenges in order to make that happen. And it’s really about moving from build and deploy mindset to really a build, own and maintain mindset that’s built on an ecosystem approach. And that’s why I think this discussion about mapping is particularly important.

Emrys Schoemaker: Thank you, Max. I’m particularly struck by your emphasis on two points. The importance of making sure that the components that an infrastructure is built out of maintain the public nature of that, the public interest, public value, and so on, on the one hand. And open source is a critical part of that, but as you said, it’s beyond open source. And on the other, the business model around which products are developed, maintained. And I think what you described that you’re seeing in terms of emerging opportunities perhaps in terms of the role that government procurement can play in terms of investing in providing that sustainability for these critical components, I think is really important to take note of in terms of what that means for suppliers, for vendors, and their relationship with government in order that when governments do buy services and systems and software that they’re actually thinking about some of these questions as well and the interests of some of those stakeholders. That’s a really helpful reminder. Thank you. And now, Susan, turning to you, you had deep experience in how actors outside of government, outside of the private sector, the P in DPI, if you like, the public. How do you see that working? And we know that in some context the deployment of DPI has been challenging, that there have been tensions between different stakeholders that in some cases people feel their needs have not been heard or listened to and incorporated into some of those processes. But I’d be interested to hear your take on how do you navigate that? What does civil society need in order to be at the table, in order to ensure that their needs and interests are represented so that the people? and DPI is really realized.

Susan Mwape: Thank you very much for that question, and indeed it’s quite challenging, but I think there are four main factors that create these challenges, there’s the issue of power, there’s the issue of influence, priorities, and also just the technical capacity. DPI is quite complex, civil society has got so many facets to it, so when we say civil society, it all represents different interests, and so getting all of them onto one agenda and the DPI can also be a problem. But I think that if we have to navigate that, first of all we need to look at inclusion of civil society, and that is inclusion by design, oftentimes we’ll find that a process like DPI functions from a top-down approach, and so civil society is brought to the table much too late in the process, to the extent that it becomes a bit of a challenge for them to find their way into this process, and in raising a number of issues, especially those that speak around issues of rights, privacy, and all those issues, it becomes a tug of war. So when they are involved by design, then it means that all these issues and concerns could already be taken on board. So instead of treating civil society as an agenda item, this is a term I learned from the youth at the IJF, instead of treating civil society as an agenda item of DPI, it’s important to look at them as strategic partners. And then the issue of influence in the design process needs to be taken with a lot of seriousness, so that when consultations are made, participation of civil society is not tokenistic, but more strategic, and that way we all begin to add value to the process. The issue of capacity and resource constraints, and I think this is something that Max was talking about earlier, just having the capacity and civil society having that technical expertise creates a disconnect, and so sometimes you find that the conversations around DPI become redundant because we are lacking that technical know-how. We also have the issue of bad laws. I think that policies and laws that exist are also creating a bigger barrier in the grand scheme of things, and so you find that governments are also trying to protect themselves from one thing or the other using bad laws, and civil society has to constantly do all this pushback around that. But I think my last point would be definitely misaligned priorities, where government priorities focus more around issues of efficiency, one of the buzzwords of DPI, scalability, economic empowerment, those issues, and then you find that on the other end, civil society talks more about inclusion, about rights, about community needs, and that’s a real gap. Beyond all these issues, trust is the biggest factor, and when we talk about trust, you find that civil society is distrustful of civil society, especially in cases where you find that the government has in the past or has a history of things like exclusion, issues of surveillance, data misuse, and all that, there’s a lot of suspicion on the end of civil society, but at the same time, government also views civil society as obstructive and also overly critical, because the concerns that they have, government oftentimes is looking at the bigger picture in terms of security, and when you talk about security, security will not give you so much space to talk about, oh, I don’t want surveillance, my data protection and all that, so there’s need to address that, and also the timing of engagements, so I think I already talked about this, where civil society comes into the story too late, we need to involve civil society. There’s also the issue of the DPI safeguards, we have DPI safeguards, and I think that’s an opportunity for civil society to progress and also to add value to the DPI conversation. Popularizing the DPI safeguards would also help to address a lot of misinformation that exists around this, it will allow for, I think, more stakeholders to come on board, and coming from civil society, it changes the narration, it moves it from a very technical conversation to one that is more transparent, a DPI that’s more inclusive, rights-respecting, and also one that all stakeholders can embrace.

Emrys Schoemaker: Thank you, Susan. I just want to pick up on your reference to the DPI safeguards, because I think that’s an important one. I wonder if you could tell those who may not know what the DPI safeguards initiative is, because I think it’s an important part of this way of thinking about a multi-stakeholder approach to ensuring that the public interest element of DPI is realized.

Susan Mwape: Absolutely. And with the DPI safeguards, the idea is for more multi-stakeholderism, and having more players participate in the process, making the process very transparent, open, and inclusive. So, even a model like the IGF, which brings on board so many stakeholders, it’s a multi-stakeholder platform, you can see from, I mean, this is my third IGF, and I noticed that from coming to the IGF, you get an opportunity to engage with people you oftentimes would not be able to meet. If you just walk in the corridors during the tea breaks, the lunch, you’ll see a buzz of conversation, and a lot going on, because those platforms are important for those of us that come from very restrictive environments. You find that it’s easier to meet your minister here, you’re able to talk to them and tell them your concerns, you meet a policymaker, you meet your internet service providers, and all these different stakeholders are able to listen to one another. In the same way that we are having this conversation, we have Max, who’s more on the tech side, we have Chindi there, who’s also on the government side, and so this gives us an opportunity to have broad conversations that we can draw lessons from, and also input constructively into.

Emrys Schoemaker: Thank you. That’s great, Susan, thank you, and I think the DPI safeguards work is a really useful example of how the DPI community is trying to learn from other spaces, as you said, like the IGF and so on. I’m particularly struck in your description, though, generally, of how important it is to understand different stakeholders’ interests and priorities, the goals that different actors might be pursuing, as you said. There might be an efficiency goal, or it might be a security goal, and those have different implications in terms of how open some stakeholders might be in interacting. And I’m also struck by the importance that you put on recognizing that DPI exists within an ecosystem, which includes things like laws and regulations, and you might have the perfect tech system, but without the right laws and regulations in place, there can still be issues and so on. So I think that’s a really helpful reminder of that. I want to open it up a little bit. We’re really keen to have and to learn from and hear from others in the room. And so one question, this is particularly to civil society organizations or people with those experiences, those kind of insights, you know, what do you wish government – how do you wish governments did multi-stakeholder engagement differently? Is there anybody here in the room who would like to respond to that, to engage? Please. And please feel free to speak. There’s also a microphone on the side, if that’s easier. Oh, very good point. Yes, thank you. Thank you for making the trek over. And as you’re walking over, let me just make another thank you to Susan, whose journey here was long and arduous, much like many civil societies’ experience of engaging in various forms of consultation. So thank you for that.

Vivian Affoah: Thank you. Okay. My name is Vivienne Afua. I work at the Media Foundation for West Africa. We are based in Ghana, but working across West Africa. We work on digital rights, freedom of expression, and I won’t bore you with the other things. But I really want to speak about what’s – I mean, from where we sit, we have a project called the Digital Public Infrastructure Journalism Fellowship, which we’ve been running in West Africa. We are currently focused on Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. And from our learnings, we see that governments don’t do a lot of consultation when it comes to DPI development and deployment, because there are some cross-cutting issues that affect how these policies are implemented and how people use these policies. One of it is digital literacy. One of it is issues about access, which affects people’s use of, for example, instant payment systems. There are people that cannot access instant payment platforms, because one – and they don’t know how to use these platforms. They also are not digitally literate. And we find that the media is a very key stakeholder in ensuring that the issues of people are brought to the fore, particularly marginalized communities. And basically they’re keeping an eye on how these policies are implemented. For example, in Ghana, Nigeria, there are issues about the national identity system. People register for ID cards, they don’t receive them. And these ID cards are tied to so many things, opening of bank accounts, getting SIM cards, and other services, including using mobile money services, which is very popular now for instant payment. So I think that there has to be a lot of consultation by governments, not just designing the policies and starting implementation. Sometimes we find that a lot of these initiatives are as a result of, let’s say, pushed by the donor community, or the World Bank brings funding to the government, you need to get ID cards or ID system, national ID for your people. So they start implementation right away without consulting. Traditional leaders, religious leaders, some of these, when you come to some of our countries in the global majority, a lot of people listen to their imams, they listen to their religious leaders, they listen to traditional leaders. If a chief says, do not go out to register, people will not go. And so we find that it’s very important for governments to ensure that there’s a lot of consultation across many stakeholders, getting people to really understand these policies and why it’s important for them to be deployed, and also ensure that the implementation is human rights respecting. Because if, I mean, from example, in Nigeria, so many people have registered for their ID cards and they don’t have a fiscal ID, they just have a number and a printout of a sheet. Ghana, so many people registered for their ID cards, they ended up not receiving them. And these people are excluded from banking services, from getting SIM cards and all of that. So, I mean, not to continue blabbing, but it’s very key that governments ensure that there’s a lot of stakeholder engagement in their developments, in their deployments. Thank you.

Emrys Schoemaker: Thank you so much. And I think there’s so much in what you said, but particularly the reference to the importance of the media as a stakeholder, as an actor who plays a role in making sure that wider discussion around these processes is engaged with, is understood, is absolutely critical. I’d like us also to make sure we’ve got space for people online. I do see your hand up, but I’m gonna invite Nandifa, I think, who has a hand up online, if you’re able to join.

Audience: Thank you very much. I hope I’m audible. Am I? Okay, thank you. It’s Advocate Nandifa from South Africa, University of South Africa. One of the issues I had wanted to raise in terms of DPIs is that probably we might have to, adding on to what the last contributor has just said, we need to look at what the extractive industry does in terms of the same, through what they call the license to operate. Now, within the license to operate paradigm, there are clear guidelines on how you engage stakeholders at grassroots, because within extractive industries, you need to make sure that there’s functionality where that particular capability is, and also for security. And so I believe that we have other sectors that we need to look into. And I sense that when we do that, we will see the interdependence between internet governance and mapping, and the energy is provided for within extractive industries. That is just my input. And thank you for allowing South Africa, University of South Africa to participate.

Emrys Schoemaker: Thank you so much for that. I think that’s a useful contribution, and thank you for joining us, at least virtually. We have another question here in the room, and then at the front. Please, go ahead. Yes. Please go ahead. Then people online can also hear you.

Audience: Good afternoon to everyone. Thank you so much to the panelists. The topic is very important, essential to internet governance. I’m Abraham, I’m based in Geneva and in Austria. My question is, how could we give more trust, how could we draw more trust between the civil societies and the governments in decision making? I’m saying this to say, I’m a member of our current working group on data governance, right now conducted by the UNCTAD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the Science and Technology Department, that mostly if we announce these kind of working groups, people are kind of reluctant, both diplomats, government officials, and civil societies. So what can we do to really motivate and have more trust in this kind of work? Thank you so much.

Emrys Schoemaker: Thank you for that question. And I’ll turn to my panelists. Perhaps Chintaka first. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on how from a government perspective that question of trust can be engaged with.

Chinthaka Ekanayake: Thank you. I think, let me share my experience. I think the gentleman mentioned is very valuable question. The building trust is important. So currently in Sri Lanka, we are in the process of implementing digital ID. Projects, there’s a lot of barriers. We work with a lot of challenges. But I know is because I’m from the technical background, I know it’s technically possible, but building the trust with the people is another concept. So what we propose is basically, we come with the PRN communication plan. So we address technically, we address something like give some more awareness, and then we are going to build the experience center, digital ID experience center, people who can see real experience. And then need to have more conversation to the grassroots level, and then academia, the different people, and then different level of people. I think that would be more effective.

Emrys Schoemaker: Thank you for that. Susan, perhaps from your perspective, what would help build that trust between civil society and government?

Susan Mwape: I think that openness would be one thing, and also having constructive dialogue. Transparency in the process, because I think that is one of the greatest gaps that governments have. Oftentimes they have the view that citizens don’t know what they want, but the people do know what they want, and when they’re given an opportunity, they will say exactly what they want. Whenever there’s openness and transparency in a process, it builds trust in itself. But when you have processes that start from the top, come to the bottom, and are just pushed on people, they often get the pushback, because that step in itself opens the process up to, what would I say, things like misinformation. It’s easy for people or opposition parties that are strong in places to politicize a process. And I think that Vivian gave a great example when she talked about issues of digital literacy, for instance, we are talking about DPI, but first of all, look at countries like mine, Zambia, where digital literacy is very low, internet penetration is very low, the cost of data is very low. So at the end of the day, when you look at the landscape in itself, to what extent would DPI add value, especially to marginalized communities and all? So in terms of answering the question of building trust, we need transparency, we need openness, we need to collaborate. Civil society can also be destructive at times, if we’re being very honest. And so I think that it’s very important for civil society to also engage in constructive dialogue. Collaborating with government and undertaking constructive dialogue doesn’t mean you have to lose your lenses. In the end, you maintain your accountability lens, and still play that role, that watchdog role, that additional eye that ensures that these decisions we’re making are rights respecting, that they add value to our communities and the people we serve, and also understanding that government is there to serve our interests and we can actually work collectively. Thank you, I hope that answers your question.

Emrys Schoemaker: Thank you for that, Susan. Bless you. Thank you. And Max, from a tech supplier’s perspective, what do you see as, firstly, the importance of trust, and what role can tech providers play in that? I’m just wondering, particularly in things like the importance of open source transparency and so on in the systems themselves.

Max Kintisch: Absolutely, this is a very crucial topic, because without trust, there’s not gonna be any implementation of these technologies, because we’re crucial. we rely on people to trust those technologies. What’s very important about DPI and DPGs, I think, is that they are not only in the words, in the law, but they very crucially exist through these technologies. So for us, it’s important to give everyone the opportunity to have a look at those technologies, have a look at the code, have those solutions be transparent, available to be reused as well. And I think that’s a crucial component of increasing trust towards those technologies. Of course, there is technical barriers. And that’s why for governments to be able to buy what they want, own what they buy, and eventually also re-share what they own, we need to invest also in the digital literacy of societies to be able to really make use of the potential that open source and DPI really offers to them.

Emrys Schoemaker: Thank you, Max. And we have another question from the floor, please. I’m also mindful of time from our wonderful production team. So we have two or three hours to go still. That’s great.

Audience: Thank you. Hi, I’m Pamod from DHS2. So I have a question for all the panelists, but it’s quite specific to Sri Lanka as well. So maybe Chintak can answer, but others as well. So it’s more about not just about mapping the correct stakeholders to promote DPI, but it’s about the way we engage with them. So the thing is, when we try to promote DPIs, we kind of show access to digital services as a main value proposition. But in the context of some of the countries, so for example, in the context of Sri Lanka, they have been having national ID for a very long time, for decades. That’s one thing. And you can’t really find any person in the country who doesn’t have a bank account. So in that kind of a context, when you try to promote this DPI, I mean, the digital public infrastructure, you might kind of find it a bit challenging just to show that, OK, now we are kind of having digital payments and digital ID. So to a kind of a community which already enjoyed some of the benefits of ID and banks, so probably that may be one reason why promoting digital payments have been not a success so far in the last couple of years. We have been trying, but I don’t know about the adoption. So my question is, how much contextualizing do we do when we are promoting DPI across different countries, specifically when it comes to the context of Sri Lanka, who already enjoyed the benefits of having an ID and having bank accounts for so many years?

Emrys Schoemaker: I think that’s for you.

Chinthaka Ekanayake: Yeah. Thanks. I think the barriers you have mentioned, promoting the DPIs or DBGs, the barriers we have is people work silos, and there’s some bureaucracy, and then personal interest, and then from the vendors, maybe. So of course, yeah, we are trying to do the SLUDI digital ID project for many years now, at least now we are in the initial stage. So what exactly we did to promoting the DPIs, and luckily, our leaders, they are from the tech background, and they are very keen to implement the DPI. We are doing in different ways, especially to providing some awareness sessions and training from the different level. For example, from the decision makers, from the ministries, like secretaries, and also the operational level, like us for the engineers, as well as in the civil society, as you mentioned here. And then building trust, again, is the key. So we have different approach. The other thing is like the purchasing the open source platform. We need to have the policies need to be embedded with our procurement, for the government procurements. Probably I think from Sri Lanka, in next two, three years, we are trying to change the policies. It’s not easy. We need to get the approval from the parliament. Yeah, that is my thought. Thank you very much.

Emrys Schoemaker: Thank you, Chintaka. And I wonder if there’s any comments on that from other panelists. And then we’ll have to close, I think, because we’re already over time and abusing our kind production team’s generosity.

Max Kintisch: Well, I cannot speak to the specifics of Sri Lanka, of course. But what I will be able to speak to is the importance of localization and the importance of adaptability when it comes to the implementation of DPI. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions in this space. And especially when it comes to convincing your citizens, I think it’s important to start from where they are. And therefore, it’s important that we don’t throw these one-size-fits-all solutions on them, but really start from where they are, from also the technical kind of development of a particular country, and really make sure that we design specific development pathways around that initial starting point. And once again, I’m just going to make some shameless promotion for open source, because as you know, Parmat, and we know each other pretty well, open source solutions and PPGs provide an excellent opportunity to just do that, work around local knowledge and local abilities and really go from there.

Emrys Schoemaker: Susan.

Susan Mwape: OK. I was in Sri Lanka two weeks ago, so I have a soft spot. But I won’t speak to Sri Lanka. I think that, particularly speaking of digital ID systems, I think they are one of those innovations that have brought a lot of issues. And I can think of a number of countries that are going through a lot of challenges where we’ve seen civil society actively engage in these processes. I think recently we had that case, a landmark case, where the Kenyan civil society sued the government on the Hodu Manamba, which was excluding a lot of communities. And the Nubian Rights Forum, I think, was one of those organizations that pushed that a lot. There’s the issues of South Africa with the post-apartheid ID. There’s also been exclusion around STEAM registry. So there’s so much, I think, to learn from so many countries on what the digital ID has come up with. But there are also so many great examples to learn from. And so I guess it’s about finding the balance and being very attentive to that and ensuring that all voices are heard in these processes and that, as they are being developed, they do not now begin to create a gap and exclusion in the process.

Emrys Schoemaker: Thank you, Susan. I think we, I fear we’re really out of time. And I know that there’s also questions we’ve not been able to get to from audience members online. So apologies for that. But we do promise to stay in touch. If you’d like to reach out to us, please do. I’d like to thank my panelists for making it with difficult journeys, for bringing insight and expertise to the conversation. Obviously, also to audience members for being part of the conversation. I did say at the beginning that we really hope to continue this conversation. We’re going to stay here. I’m going to stay here. And I would love to continue the discussion for those of us who are able to be here in the room. And as I said, this is a piece of work, a process of consultation to understand how stakeholder engagement can be best supported within DPI processes. So any insights, anything you’d like to share would be gratefully received by us. Please don’t hesitate to follow up with us. But I’d like to thank, again, panelists, the Internet Governance Secretariat for helping making this space available. And of course, to our wonderful production team for ensuring that all of this is happening. So all voices are heard today. So thank you all so much. And round of applause for our panelists. Thank you. Thank you.

Agreement points

Trust building requires transparency, openness, and meaningful engagement

Speakers

– Chinthaka Ekanayake
– Susan Mwape
– Max Kintisch

Arguments

Building trust requires public relations communication plans, awareness programs, experience centers, and grassroots-level conversations

Trust building requires openness, transparency, constructive dialogue, and collaborative engagement while maintaining accountability roles

Open source and transparent technologies allow everyone to examine code and solutions, increasing trust through technical transparency

Summary

All three speakers agree that building trust in DPI requires transparency, open communication, and genuine engagement with stakeholders. They emphasize different aspects – government communication strategies, civil society dialogue, and technical transparency – but converge on the fundamental need for openness.

Topics

Human rights | Infrastructure | Development

DPI implementation must be contextualized to local conditions and needs

Speakers

– Max Kintisch
– Vivian Affoah
– Audience

Arguments

Implementation must be contextualized to local conditions rather than using one-size-fits-all solutions, starting from where citizens currently are

Governments often lack adequate consultation in DPI development, leading to issues with digital literacy, access barriers, and exclusion from services

Contextualizing DPI promotion is crucial when countries already have existing infrastructure and services

Summary

There is strong agreement that DPI cannot be implemented using universal templates but must be adapted to each country’s specific context, existing infrastructure, and citizen needs. This includes considering digital literacy levels, access barriers, and existing services.

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Sociocultural

Stakeholder engagement requires moving beyond tokenistic consultation to meaningful participation

Speakers

– Susan Mwape
– Vivian Affoah
– Chinthaka Ekanayake

Arguments

Need for inclusion by design rather than treating civil society as agenda item, ensuring strategic rather than tokenistic participation

Governments often lack adequate consultation in DPI development, leading to issues with digital literacy, access barriers, and exclusion from services

Clear mapping of priorities facilitates targeted intervention and better resource allocation, optimizing grants and enhancing stakeholder collaboration

Summary

All speakers agree that effective stakeholder engagement requires genuine participation from the design phase rather than superficial consultation. This includes strategic partnership approaches and comprehensive stakeholder mapping.

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory | Development

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the critical role of civil society and media in representing marginalized communities and ensuring their voices are heard in DPI processes. They both highlight how power imbalances and lack of consultation create barriers to inclusive implementation.

Speakers

– Susan Mwape
– Vivian Affoah

Arguments

Civil society faces challenges due to power dynamics, influence limitations, priorities misalignment, and technical capacity constraints

Media serves as key stakeholder in bringing marginalized community issues to the fore and monitoring policy implementation

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural | Development

Both speakers advocate for fundamental changes in government procurement policies to support open source solutions and sustainable DPI development. They emphasize the need for long-term thinking beyond initial deployment.

Speakers

– Max Kintisch
– Chinthaka Ekanayake

Arguments

Need to move from ‘build and deploy’ to ‘build, own and maintain’ mindset with ecosystem approach, supported by government co-funding and open-source procurement principles

Procurement policies need to be embedded with open source principles, requiring parliamentary approval and policy changes

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure | Economic

Both speakers recognize the complexity of government as a stakeholder, emphasizing that it consists of multiple departments and entities that must coordinate effectively for successful DPI implementation.

Speakers

– Emrys Schoemaker
– Chinthaka Ekanayake

Arguments

Government is not a monolith and requires coordination across different departments for shared DPI infrastructure

DPI involves complex internal and external stakeholder landscapes that require structured mapping and engagement

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Unexpected consensus

Open source as foundation for public trust and sustainability

Speakers

– Max Kintisch
– Chinthaka Ekanayake
– Susan Mwape

Arguments

Open source and transparent technologies allow everyone to examine code and solutions, increasing trust through technical transparency

Procurement policies need to be embedded with open source principles, requiring parliamentary approval and policy changes

DPI safeguards provide opportunities for civil society to add value and address misinformation through transparent, inclusive, rights-respecting approaches

Explanation

It’s unexpected to see such strong consensus across government, tech provider, and civil society perspectives on the importance of open source principles. This suggests a mature understanding that transparency benefits all stakeholders, even though they might have different motivations.

Topics

Infrastructure | Human rights | Legal and regulatory

Recognition of civil society’s constructive potential alongside accountability role

Speakers

– Susan Mwape
– Chinthaka Ekanayake

Arguments

Trust building requires openness, transparency, constructive dialogue, and collaborative engagement while maintaining accountability roles

Building trust requires public relations communication plans, awareness programs, experience centers, and grassroots-level conversations

Explanation

The consensus between a government representative and civil society advocate on the potential for constructive collaboration while maintaining accountability functions is unexpected, suggesting a mature approach to multi-stakeholder engagement that goes beyond adversarial relationships.

Topics

Human rights | Development | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated remarkable consensus on key principles including the need for transparency and trust-building, contextualized implementation approaches, meaningful stakeholder engagement, and the importance of open source principles. There was also agreement on the complexity of stakeholder landscapes and the need for systematic approaches to engagement.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with complementary rather than conflicting perspectives. The different stakeholder representatives (government, tech providers, civil society, media) offered reinforcing viewpoints that suggest a maturing field with shared understanding of best practices. This consensus has positive implications for DPI implementation as it suggests alignment on fundamental principles across different stakeholder groups, which could facilitate more effective multi-stakeholder collaboration in practice.

Different viewpoints

Approach to building trust with civil society

Speakers

– Chinthaka Ekanayake
– Susan Mwape

Arguments

Building trust requires public relations communication plans, awareness programs, experience centers, and grassroots-level conversations

Trust building requires openness, transparency, constructive dialogue, and collaborative engagement while maintaining accountability roles

Summary

Chinthaka focuses on technical demonstration and awareness campaigns through experience centers and PR plans, while Susan emphasizes systemic transparency, openness in processes, and maintaining civil society’s watchdog role during collaboration

Topics

Development | Human rights | Legal and regulatory

Unexpected differences

Role of civil society in maintaining accountability versus collaboration

Speakers

– Susan Mwape

Arguments

Trust building requires openness, transparency, constructive dialogue, and collaborative engagement while maintaining accountability roles

Explanation

Susan presents an internal tension within civil society engagement – the need to collaborate constructively with government while simultaneously maintaining a watchdog role. This creates an unexpected complexity where the same actor must be both partner and critic

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion shows remarkably high consensus on core principles with disagreements mainly on implementation approaches and emphasis. Key areas of different emphasis include: technical versus systemic approaches to trust-building, practical versus strategic approaches to stakeholder engagement, and balancing collaboration with accountability

Disagreement level

Low level of fundamental disagreement with moderate differences in implementation approaches. This suggests a mature field where stakeholders agree on goals but are working through practical challenges of execution. The implications are positive for DPI development as there appears to be broad consensus on principles with healthy debate on methods

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the critical role of civil society and media in representing marginalized communities and ensuring their voices are heard in DPI processes. They both highlight how power imbalances and lack of consultation create barriers to inclusive implementation.

Speakers

– Susan Mwape
– Vivian Affoah

Arguments

Civil society faces challenges due to power dynamics, influence limitations, priorities misalignment, and technical capacity constraints

Media serves as key stakeholder in bringing marginalized community issues to the fore and monitoring policy implementation

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural | Development

Both speakers advocate for fundamental changes in government procurement policies to support open source solutions and sustainable DPI development. They emphasize the need for long-term thinking beyond initial deployment.

Speakers

– Max Kintisch
– Chinthaka Ekanayake

Arguments

Need to move from ‘build and deploy’ to ‘build, own and maintain’ mindset with ecosystem approach, supported by government co-funding and open-source procurement principles

Procurement policies need to be embedded with open source principles, requiring parliamentary approval and policy changes

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure | Economic

Both speakers recognize the complexity of government as a stakeholder, emphasizing that it consists of multiple departments and entities that must coordinate effectively for successful DPI implementation.

Speakers

– Emrys Schoemaker
– Chinthaka Ekanayake

Arguments

Government is not a monolith and requires coordination across different departments for shared DPI infrastructure

DPI involves complex internal and external stakeholder landscapes that require structured mapping and engagement

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Key takeaways

DPI implementation requires sophisticated stakeholder mapping and coordination across complex internal and external ecosystems, particularly within government departments that must work together on shared infrastructure

Tech providers face critical sustainability challenges including funding volatility, commercial viability of open solutions, and lack of deployment visibility, necessitating a shift from ‘build and deploy’ to ‘build, own and maintain’ approaches

Civil society engagement must be ‘inclusion by design’ rather than tokenistic consultation, with media playing a crucial role in representing marginalized communities and monitoring implementation

Trust building between stakeholders requires transparency, openness, constructive dialogue, and technical transparency through open source solutions

DPI implementation must be contextualized to local conditions rather than using one-size-fits-all approaches, considering existing infrastructure and community dynamics

Government procurement policies need reform to support open-source principles and sustainable funding models for digital public goods

Traditional and religious leaders are crucial stakeholders whose engagement is essential for community acceptance of DPI initiatives

Resolutions and action items

Continue the stakeholder engagement consultation process that this discussion was part of, with participants encouraged to follow up with additional insights

Panelists committed to staying available for continued discussion after the formal session

Promote and popularize DPI safeguards as a framework for multi-stakeholder engagement and addressing misinformation

Develop experience centers and awareness programs at grassroots level to build trust (specifically mentioned for Sri Lanka’s digital ID project)

Reform procurement policies to embed open-source principles, requiring parliamentary approval in some contexts like Sri Lanka

Unresolved issues

How to effectively insulate critical DPI vendors from funding volatility while maintaining public interest

Balancing government security priorities with civil society concerns about surveillance and data protection

Addressing the technical capacity gap in civil society to meaningfully engage with complex DPI discussions

Resolving misaligned priorities between government focus on efficiency/scalability and civil society focus on inclusion/rights

Determining optimal timing and methods for stakeholder engagement to avoid tokenistic participation

Addressing low digital literacy and internet penetration in contexts where DPI is being implemented

Managing the challenge of promoting DPI in countries that already have established analog systems (like Sri Lanka’s existing ID and banking infrastructure)

Suggested compromises

Government co-funding of digital public goods through mechanisms like universal access funds (Cambodia example cited)

Adopting ‘building with’ rather than ‘building for’ approaches that foster partnerships with vendor ecosystems

Using multi-stakeholder platforms like IGF model to facilitate dialogue across different stakeholder groups

Implementing open-source first principles in procurement while maintaining commercial viability for vendors

Starting DPI implementation from where citizens currently are rather than imposing new systems, allowing for gradual adaptation

Civil society maintaining accountability roles while engaging in constructive rather than purely oppositional dialogue

We often forget that certainly within government, it’s not a monolith. And we often think that government is, that’s the government, that’s the private sector, that’s civil society. What you described I think is the complexity of both internal and external stakeholders and internally… one of the challenges of a DPI approach is if you have shared infrastructure that’s shared across different departments, that’s a big change in the way these different stakeholders within government have to work together.

Speaker

Emrys Schoemaker

Reason

This comment reframes the traditional understanding of stakeholder categories by highlighting the internal complexity within government structures. It challenges the simplistic view of government as a single entity and introduces the political and operational challenges of cross-departmental collaboration in DPI implementation.

Impact

This observation shifted the discussion from viewing stakeholders as distinct external groups to recognizing the complexity within each category. It set up the framework for understanding why DPI implementation faces internal governmental challenges, which influenced subsequent discussions about procurement, policy changes, and bureaucratic barriers.

It’s really the question here really is about how we can safeguard the public interest, the publicness of that solution via a commercially viable sustainable model. So how can we make sure that those companies can maintain the core code basis of those solutions and allow others to work on them?

Speaker

Max Kintisch

Reason

This comment identifies a fundamental tension in DPI development – balancing public interest with commercial sustainability. It goes beyond the typical open source vs. proprietary debate to address the deeper challenge of maintaining public value while ensuring vendor viability.

Impact

This insight introduced a nuanced perspective on the sustainability challenge that moved the conversation beyond simple funding issues to structural business model questions. It influenced later discussions about government procurement practices and the need for new approaches to vendor relationships.

Instead of treating civil society as an agenda item… it’s important to look at them as strategic partners. And then the issue of influence in the design process needs to be taken with a lot of seriousness, so that when consultations are made, participation of civil society is not tokenistic, but more strategic.

Speaker

Susan Mwape

Reason

This comment powerfully critiques superficial stakeholder engagement by distinguishing between tokenistic consultation and meaningful partnership. The phrase ‘agenda item’ versus ‘strategic partner’ crystallizes a fundamental problem in how civil society is often marginalized in DPI processes.

Impact

This framing became a central theme that resonated throughout the discussion. It influenced how other speakers, including audience members, discussed the quality and timing of stakeholder engagement, and provided a framework for evaluating genuine versus performative inclusion.

There are people that cannot access instant payment platforms, because one – and they don’t know how to use these platforms. They also are not digitally literate… Traditional leaders, religious leaders, some of these, when you come to some of our countries in the global majority, a lot of people listen to their imams, they listen to their religious leaders, they listen to traditional leaders. If a chief says, do not go out to register, people will not go.

Speaker

Vivian Affoah

Reason

This comment grounds the theoretical discussion in practical realities by highlighting how digital literacy and traditional power structures affect DPI adoption. It challenges assumptions about who the relevant stakeholders are and how influence actually works in many contexts.

Impact

This intervention brought the discussion back to grassroots realities and expanded the stakeholder mapping to include traditional and religious leaders. It influenced subsequent conversations about trust-building and the importance of understanding local contexts rather than applying one-size-fits-all approaches.

We need to look at what the extractive industry does in terms of the same, through what they call the license to operate… within extractive industries, you need to make sure that there’s functionality where that particular capability is, and also for security.

Speaker

Nandifa (online participant)

Reason

This comment introduces a cross-sectoral learning opportunity by drawing parallels between DPI stakeholder engagement and established practices in extractive industries. It suggests that other sectors have developed sophisticated stakeholder engagement frameworks that could inform DPI approaches.

Impact

While brief, this comment opened up the possibility of learning from other industries’ stakeholder engagement practices. It suggested that DPI practitioners don’t need to reinvent stakeholder engagement but could adapt proven methodologies from other complex infrastructure projects.

When you try to promote this DPI… you might kind of find it a bit challenging just to show that, OK, now we are kind of having digital payments and digital ID. So to a kind of a community which already enjoyed some of the benefits of ID and banks… how much contextualizing do we do when we are promoting DPI across different countries?

Speaker

Pamod

Reason

This question challenges the universal applicability of DPI value propositions by pointing out that some countries already have functional analog systems. It raises important questions about whether DPI is always an improvement and how to communicate value in contexts where basic services already exist.

Impact

This question forced the discussion to confront the assumption that DPI is universally beneficial. It led to conversations about localization, adaptation, and the importance of starting from existing capabilities rather than imposing external models, fundamentally challenging one-size-fits-all approaches to DPI promotion.

Overall assessment

These key comments collectively transformed what could have been a technical discussion about stakeholder mapping into a nuanced exploration of power dynamics, sustainability challenges, and contextual adaptation in DPI implementation. The most impactful interventions came from practitioners with direct experience (Susan, Vivian, Pamod) who grounded theoretical concepts in real-world challenges. The discussion evolved from abstract stakeholder categories to concrete issues of trust, inclusion, and local adaptation. The comments revealed tensions between efficiency and rights, between global models and local contexts, and between public interest and commercial viability. Together, they created a more sophisticated understanding of DPI stakeholder engagement that acknowledges complexity, power imbalances, and the need for genuine rather than tokenistic participation.

How do we insulate vendors who are working on critical infrastructural components from shifts in philanthropic and grant funding interests?

Speaker

Max Kintisch

Explanation

This addresses the challenge of funding volatility for tech providers dependent on philanthropic money, which affects the sustainability of critical DPI components

How can we safeguard the public interest and publicness of DPI solutions via commercially viable sustainable models?

Speaker

Max Kintisch

Explanation

This explores the challenge of maintaining public interest while ensuring commercial viability for companies maintaining core code basis of DPI solutions

How can vendors better track where their code is deployed, for what purposes, what it costs, and how it’s being implemented?

Speaker

Max Kintisch

Explanation

This addresses the visibility challenge where most vendors don’t know the impact and deployment details of their solutions, which is crucial for funding and measuring impact

How can governments ensure procurement policies embed open source principles and support DPI implementation?

Speaker

Chinthaka Ekanayake

Explanation

This relates to the need for policy changes at parliamentary level to support open source procurement in government, which is challenging but necessary for DPI success

What can be done to motivate participation and build more trust in multi-stakeholder working groups on data governance?

Speaker

Abraham (audience member)

Explanation

This addresses the reluctance of both government officials and civil society to participate in UN working groups, highlighting a broader trust and engagement challenge

How much contextualizing should be done when promoting DPI across different countries, especially in contexts where basic services already exist?

Speaker

Pamod (audience member)

Explanation

This questions the one-size-fits-all approach to DPI promotion, particularly in countries like Sri Lanka where citizens already have access to IDs and banking services

How can the extractive industry’s ‘license to operate’ model be applied to DPI stakeholder engagement?

Speaker

Advocate Nandifa

Explanation

This suggests learning from other sectors that have established clear guidelines for grassroots stakeholder engagement, which could inform DPI implementation approaches

How can governments better address cross-cutting issues like digital literacy and access when developing DPI policies?

Speaker

Vivian Affoah

Explanation

This highlights the need for more comprehensive consultation that addresses fundamental barriers to DPI adoption, particularly for marginalized communities