The DPI Opportunity for Women & Girls

The speaker argues that a girl being out of school usually cannot be explained by a single cause. Instead, exclusion is shaped by several overlapping factors, including equity, geography, demographics and culture, which together affect whether girls can participate.

One participant explicitly said Maria not being in school could be classified into several 'buckets', including equity, geography, demographic issues and cultural or religious concerns, and stressed that development does not automatically translate into equitable reach or access . The participant concluded that Maria being out of school 'could mean a lot of things', underscoring the multiplicity of exclusion factors .

The discussion identified a combination of social and material barriers that block girls’ access. These include poverty, economic and physical inaccessibility, cultural position in society, poor geography and the fact that service provision on paper does not necessarily result in actual access or use.

A participant said Maria might lack pads because of period poverty and because she may not have economic or physical access to them, including simply not being able to get them . Another participant added that the position of women in society also shapes such exclusion . A further participant cited geography, equity, culture and religion as possible causes . In response to Krisstina’s question on service provision, a participant argued that government provision alone does not ensure enforcement, compliance or use, and that uptake also depends on change management, community engagement and personal conviction .

The speaker argues that girls may be excluded from schooling because the physical and social conditions needed for attendance are missing. This includes lack of nearby schools, unsafe travel or school environments, poor educational quality and inadequate sanitation facilities for girls, especially during menstruation.

A participant said Maria may not have a school nearby at all, and that where schools do exist there may be safety problems or such poor quality that the community does not value the education provided . The same participant added that girls may feel unsafe while commuting or while at school, and may also lack basic facilities such as washrooms and private spaces needed during menstruation .

This argument highlights that digital inclusion for women and girls is not only a matter of infrastructure or service design, but is also shaped by cultural norms and household-level sensitivities. These social dynamics can influence whether women are allowed, encouraged or able to use digital tools and services.

Krisstina closed by relaying an online comment from Sahana, noting that she was 'very curious about tackling the culture and household layer of sensitivity' when discussing digital inclusion for women and girls . Earlier in the brainstorm, participants had also raised culture, religion and the position of women in society as part of the explanation for exclusion , .

Krisstina argues that exclusion is usually systemic rather than service-specific. If a girl cannot access education, the same underlying barriers are likely to prevent her from accessing health, transport and other government services later in life.

Krisstina stated that the reason Maria is not in school is probably the same reason she cannot access health services or, later, government services such as transport or a driving licence in a digital society . She also stressed that this is not about one service or one department, but the same issue appearing horizontally across government .

Krisstina presents DPI as a cross-government response to recurring access barriers faced by the same person across multiple services. Rather than digitising each service separately, she argues for shared infrastructure that enables governments to serve people in a unified and coordinated way.

She explained that governments have often digitised services vertically in the past, whereas DPI reframes this by asking why the same person should not receive similar services through a unified approach . She also described the problem as horizontal across departments and said DPI is the proposed answer to that broader service access challenge .

Krisstina argues that digital systems become more effective when they are shaped by people who understand their own needs directly. She frames women’s lived experience as a critical source of design insight that should be embedded into digital systems rather than treated as secondary input.

In introducing Kathleen’s intervention, Krisstina said there is much to learn from users designing systems for themselves based on their own experience and lessons . She added that the Women in GovTech programme has been impactful because it empowers women to think through their own user needs and build those insights into digital systems .

Krisstina argues that schools are one of the first structured points at which girls interact with the state and digital systems, making them a powerful entry point for inclusive service design. She suggests that school data can help governments understand girls’ needs and connect education with other services like vaccinations and meal schemes.

She said schools are the first infrastructure many girls and children access and contain valuable information about what services girls need and how they should be supported in a digital society . She further explained that schools can connect their systems with vaccinations and midday meals delivery, creating added value for governments through linked services .

Krisstina argues that DPI-enabled payment systems can make it easier for women to access financial services by reducing delays and transaction friction. She presents digital payments as a practical way to improve inclusion in everyday financial interactions.

She gave examples of DPI working for women and girls, stating that digital payments can reduce the time taken to access money and banking services . She framed this as one of the concrete ways shared digital infrastructure can improve access for women .

Krisstina argues that digital and retail payment systems can help women entrepreneurs participate more fully in markets. By making transactions easier and broader in reach, these systems can open access to additional customers and market segments.

She said that for female entrepreneurs, digital retail payments provide better access to markets and more segments of the market . Later, she returned to this point and noted that payments and retail payments matter not only for purchasing goods and services but also as a means for women entrepreneurs to participate more actively in digital commerce .

Krisstina suggests that payment systems are becoming an important lens through which to understand women’s participation in digital society. As more activity shifts online, financial transactions can reveal whether women are being included in digital services and markets.

She said that payments, digital payments and mobile money are increasingly being treated as a way to see women’s participation in digital services . She then added that participation is no longer only physical but increasingly digital, and that this is where payments and retail payments become especially important .

Krisstina argues that the data generated by digital systems could be used more strategically to improve policymaking and service targeting for women and girls. Her point is that the opportunity exists, but there is still limited understanding of what data is useful and how it should be applied.

In her summary, she said there is an opportunity to take data from these systems and use it positively to target the right services and benefits to women and girls . She also noted that there is poor understanding of what this data looks like, where it is beneficial and how it should be leveraged for policymaking and decision-making .

Kathleen presents GovStack as a DPI initiative designed to help governments build affordable and digitally sovereign public services. She describes it as a shared approach using technical building blocks such as identity, payments and data exchange protocols across multiple countries.

Kathleen said GovStack is funded by Germany, Estonia, ITU, DAI and others, and aims to support governments worldwide in creating affordable and digitally sovereign public services . She added that it is already implemented in 25 countries and includes technical specifications ranging from identity and payments to data exchange protocols .

Kathleen argues that digital infrastructure, like cities, often reflects the assumptions of male designers unless women’s needs are deliberately included. Her core point is that women must be involved in planning and building digital systems so those systems better serve them.

She used the analogy of cities being planned by male engineers without women’s needs in mind, giving examples such as dark roads and reduced public spaces that do not work well for women and children . She then said GovStack is trying to address this by making development and stack-building processes more available to women .

Kathleen argues that structured initiatives can help women move from being users of systems to becoming co-creators of them. By bringing together women developers and women in public service with mentorship, these initiatives enable more relevant digital public service solutions.

She described the Women in GovTech Challenge as a programme that specifically brings together female developers and women working in public service to receive mentorship and build prototypes addressing digital public service delivery . She later invited people to a session showcasing winners and noted that more than 250 women had participated in the challenge community .

Kathleen argues that women’s community-level knowledge is essential for designing effective digital public services. Because women often manage everyday family and community needs, they are well placed to identify what services are missing and what kinds of infrastructure are actually useful.

She said GovStack uses a community-based approach because many women do community work and often know best what is lacking in their cities, governments and municipalities . She also argued that women know best what government should do because they live in the community and experience the day-to-day demands of family well-being .

Kathleen uses practical cases to show that community-informed DPI can solve concrete barriers to accessing services. Her examples illustrate that locally rooted design can respond to real administrative and civic access problems affecting women and communities.

She described work in Brazil on proof of address certifications, explaining that without proof of address women cannot access important services such as social protection and healthcare, and that this was identified by a local contact as a key place to start . She also highlighted Bogota Listens, a chatbot designed to help people with little time report basic needs and infrastructure requirements so the city can respond, presenting it as an example of women-led, community-based design .

Kevin argues that many DPI discussions assume individuals already own devices and can connect privately, which is not always true. He therefore stresses the importance of public access points where people can interact with digital systems even without personal hardware.

Kevin said DPI debates often assume that people have devices to interact with digital building blocks, and asked what happens when they do not . He then said his organisation promotes a model of digital public infrastructure in which people access services through public places .

Kevin argues that shared institutions in the community can function as gateways into digital services for people who are otherwise disconnected. This broadens digital inclusion by relying on trusted public sites rather than only individual connectivity.

He said his project Connect That Post aims to connect every post office in the world to the Internet . He also explained that his organisation promotes anchor institutions including schools, libraries and post offices as entry points for less connected communities .

Kevin argues that physical post offices can complement digital systems by serving as places where people enrol in identity systems and access digital payment services. This helps bridge the gap between digital infrastructure and people who still need in-person support.

He gave the example of Aadhaar enrolment centres, noting that people go to a physical place to enrol and that post offices serve as one of those touchpoints . He also said that in other countries people access digital payments through post offices that are underpinned by DPI .

Kevin’s broader point is that certain community institutions can serve as shared infrastructure for digital inclusion. These locations can become practical access points for services where household-level connectivity or devices are lacking.

He said his organisation promotes the use of anchor institutions more generally, specifically naming schools, libraries and post offices as entry points for less connected communities . He linked this idea to the need for public places where people can access digital services without relying solely on personal devices .

Carolina argues that connecting schools to the Internet is important, but it does not on its own solve the exclusion of girls from education. She distinguishes between the connectivity gap and the wider social problem of girls still being out of school.

She said that of the world’s 6 million schools, half are still unconnected, affecting about 500 million students, many of them likely girls . She then stressed that connectivity alone will not fix the fact that 119 million girls are still out of school, and that even if all schools were connected tomorrow, around 120 million girls would still remain outside the system , .

Carolina suggests that schools can act as the first structured point where girls are recognised within digital systems. She proposes that schools may even serve as entry points for enrolling children into digital identity systems, helping make girls visible earlier in life.

She asked whether schools could be the entry point for digitalisation of ID and for beginning to track that girls exist in public systems . To support this, she cited Nigeria’s digital ID project, where total enrolment tripled over four years, women’s enrolment outpaced men’s, and the number of children enrolled rose dramatically from 750,000 to 17 million .

Carolina argues that inclusion depends on whether education systems actually record and distinguish girls in their data. If systems do not track gender-disaggregated information, girls become invisible to policymakers and their needs are less likely to be addressed.

She asked whether the education management information system tracks gender-disaggregated data and warned that if it does not know who is a boy and who is a girl, then girls are invisible in the data and therefore invisible to policy . She later noted that the charter and technical specifications her team is developing aim to support inclusive and interoperable digital learning platforms .

Soheib argues that mobile connectivity sits beneath most other forms of DPI and determines whether people can actually benefit from them. In his view, digital identity, payments and digital public services are unusable in practice if meaningful connectivity is absent.

He said the GSMA perspective starts one layer below typical DPI discussions and that meaningful mobile connectivity is the foundation determining whether women and girls can benefit from digital identity, digital payments and data exchange systems . He then stated plainly that without connectivity a digital identity cannot be used, a digital payment cannot be received, and digital health, education and government services cannot be accessed .

Soheib argues that gender gaps in basic mobile access translate directly into unequal access to DPI. Because women are less likely than men to own devices or use mobile internet, they are also less able to use identity systems, financial tools and other digital services.

He presented figures from the GSMA Mobile Gender Gap Report, saying that 810 million women in low- and middle-income countries still do not use mobile Internet . He added that women are 12 per cent less likely to use mobile Internet, 13 per cent less likely to use a smartphone and 7 per cent less likely to own a mobile phone than men, and argued that these figures represent exclusion from digital identity systems and financial services .

Soheib argues that the remaining obstacles to women’s connectivity are largely social and economic rather than purely technical. He emphasises that affordability, skills, safety and whether services feel relevant are now key determinants of inclusion.

He said one of the most important findings from GSMA research is that the biggest barriers are no longer primarily technical . He then listed affordability of smartphones, affordability of mobile data, digital skills and confidence, online safety and security, and the relevance of services as the central barriers requiring attention .

Balu argues that inclusion cannot be reduced to whether someone is enrolled in or has access to a system. Instead, it should be understood as a broader and intersectional condition involving belonging, participation, rights, trust and agency, with multiple factors shaping women’s inclusion or exclusion.

He said the impact of DPI on women and girls should be understood through inclusion as a metric, but that inclusion and exclusion are multifactorial and often intersectional rather than explained by gender alone . He later added that the survey maps beyond enrolment or access to include trust, agency, belonging, participation and the rights people actively enjoy .

Balu argues that systematic data collection can reveal the specific points at which inclusion succeeds or breaks down. By combining household surveys with other forms of data, researchers and governments can better understand access, use, trust and outcomes across the DPI chain.

He explained that GDN is selecting national research teams to use a questionnaire measuring household-level conditions such as access to mobiles, internet, infrastructure and even whether a house receives cell tower signal . He said the survey then examines whether DPI exists, whether people are enrolled and using it, and whether this leads to trust, agency and inclusion outcomes, allowing researchers to identify 'choke points' in inclusion and exclusion . He also mentioned the use of other forms of data such as exhaust data or metadata alongside surveys .

Fatma argues that policymaking is hindered when available data is incomplete, contradictory or fragmented. Her point is that data must be better unified and standardised if policymakers are to interpret it reliably and use it to design beneficial policies.

Fatma referred to her recent work on a digital justice framework and said that one major challenge is that data is often incomplete or contradictory, especially in criminal justice . She then directly asked how data could be unified and standardised so policymakers could interpret it and act on it in useful ways .