Principles for digital development

Principles and Recommendations

About:

The page ‘Principles for Digital Development’ is about how accessible digital technologies may be used in new ways by international development organizations, as digital tools could be parts of programming for improved outcomes. While some efforts of using digital tools in international development were successful, others failed. Nonetheless, they present a set of principles as ‘living guidance intended to help practitioners succeed in applying digital technologies to development programs’ and are always in a process of being updated or modified. The set of principles is as follows:

– Design digital initiatives through user-centred designs.
– Understand the existing ecosystem and context of each country, region and community.
– Design for scale, by planning for later possibilities, more widespread adoptions and affordability, past the pilot stage.
– Build sustainable programs, platforms and digital tools to maximize long-term impacts.
– Make the initiative data driven with quality information.
– Use Open Standards, Open Data, Open Source, and Open Innovation.
– Reuse and Improve, by looking ‘for ways to adapt and enhance existing products, resources and approaches’.
– Address Privacy & Security with considerations ‘of which data are collected and how data are acquired, used, stored and shared’.
– Be collaborative.