The DPI Use Cases Explorer has been developed through a combination of extensive research, and valuable inputs from experts and practitioners across the ecosystem. Their insights were instrumental in shaping the taxonomy, identifying implementation examples, and grounding the research in diverse country contexts.
We acknowledge the contributions of the following individuals and organisations who generously shared their time, perspectives, and experience to inform and validate this work (listed in no particular order):
Context: The DPI Use Cases Explorer documents how Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is being implemented across countries and sectors. It brings together DPI implementation examples from health, education, agriculture, social protection, financial inclusion, climate, and other sectors, where DPI is enabling governments and institutions to serve citizens more effectively.
The explorer highlights how DPI components such as digital identity, payments, and data exchange have been applied to deliver real-world services like direct cash transfers, eKYC for financial inclusion, telemedicine, and digital document verification, among many others.
The explorer has been developed through a combination of secondary research and stakeholder interviews, drawing on global reports, sectoral resources, and practitioner insights. Its structure is guided by a taxonomy that connects sectors, use cases, DPI components, and implementation examples, making it possible to filter, compare, and learn across geographies.
Objective: The DPI Use Cases Explorer takes a citizen-centric lens, showcasing how DPI addresses real needs and challenges. Instead of focusing only on technical artefacts, it highlights how DPI enables services that directly improve people's lives.
It is recognised that the definitions and understanding of digital public infrastructure (DPI) continue to evolve.
The text adopted by the G20 Digital Economy Ministers Group (August 2023) was referred to, it describes DPI as “a set of shared digital systems that should be secure and interoperable, and can be built on open standards and specifications to deliver and provide equitable access to public and/or private services at societal scale, and are governed by applicable legal frameworks and enabling rules to drive development, inclusion, innovation, trust, and competition while respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
Often, a central question is to identify what qualifies as a DPI implementation, as opposed to a general digitisation effort.
To address this, the DPI Use Cases Explorer aligns with the technology architecture principles articulated by the Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure (CDPI), which emphasise how DPI efforts can be architected to be distinct from traditional digitisation efforts:
Based on this foundation, an extensive literature review, and key informant interviews, a taxonomy was finalised through an iterative process. The following section highlights this taxonomy, outlines how it was adapted for the DPI Use Cases Explorer, and defines key terminologies used.
The data, components, and services layers commonly featured in the DPI framework are recognised and generally accepted by the ecosystem. Building on this foundational structure, an additional layer was introduced, and referred to as the "implementation example". The implementation example layer has been added above the services layer to capture how DPI is applied in real-world settings. Using this approach, the DPI implementation examples have been documented.
A set of twelve components that represent the core functional elements of DPI-enabled services have been identified. These components describe the primary technical functionality delivered by the said digital interventions. It is important to note that the components are not mutually exclusive. In practice, many digital interventions integrate multiple components; for example, a payments component may also include an embedded layer of data exchange and digital ID.
Figure 2 illustrates how implementation examples, use cases, and components are organised in the DPI Use Cases Explorer. For instance;
A mixed-methods approach was adopted, combining secondary research with insights from the key informant interviews. A review of over 25 reports and websites was conducted, and 25 practitioners from the ecosystem were interviewed. The objective was to identify and categorise implementation examples where DPI has enabled a service to the citizen. The aim is to present a demand-side perspective, focusing on the problems citizens face and how they can be solved, as opposed to the supply-side perspective, which discusses technological solutions available within the ecosystem.
The following section highlights observations from both the secondary research and key informant interviews.
For taxonomy development, the resources listed in Table 3 were referred to.
Resources listed in Table 4 were consulted to identify use cases and implementation examples across sectors and geographies. Additional resources were also used to assign problem tags and categorise examples by themes such as social protection and gender inclusion.
Each implementation example and use case was further researched individually by reviewing the available resources, the references for which have been included in the explorer.
Key informant interviews (KIIs) were conducted to discuss DPI use cases, explore implementation examples, and validate the evolving taxonomy. A diverse range of stakeholders participated, including academicians, representatives of multilateral organisations, government officials from different countries, and practitioners from Digital Public Good (DPG) organisations.
The purpose of the KIIs was to understand the problem statements being addressed by DPI-enabled services in different country contexts and gather feedback on the taxonomy. The discussions explored the DPI use cases across sectors such as health, agriculture, social protection, and financial inclusion. These KIIs helped in shaping a nuanced and contextually grounded DPI Use Cases Explorer.
In addition to the KIIs, inputs were received from Robert Karanja, Desire Kachenje, Aura Cifuentes, Lindsey Crumbaugh, and Sourav Das from the Co-Develop team.
Acknowledgement is extended to all who contributed to the development of the DPI Use Cases Explorer, with appreciation for their efforts.
The DPI Use Cases Explorer is a collection of detailed, sector-specific implementation examples of DPI use cases from across the world. This interactive platform is designed to showcase how DPI is being leveraged across countries to solve real citizen problems. Built on extensive research, 130 examples from 50 countries have been collated to date, and a taxonomy has been developed to describe the use cases. The taxonomy and the Explorer are intended to help identify pathways for meeting citizen needs through the DPI approach.
The Explorer was built to help policymakers, practitioners, and researchers understand how DPI can be used to address diverse citizen challenges. By showcasing global DPI implementation examples, it promotes knowledge-sharing and helps users get ideas for tackling similar challenges in their own countries.
Anyone interested in learning about DPI can use the Explorer, including but not limited to policymakers, development practitioners, researchers, and innovators.
You can explore implementation examples by using filters to narrow results by country, sector, type of DPI component, among others on the Explore page.
Each implementation example in the DPI Use Cases Explorer comes with a detailed view that includes:
The Explorer was developed using extensive secondary research and expert interviews. It compiles implementation examples across countries and sectors, and presents them in a structured, filterable format for easy discovery. See the Methodology section for more details.
Yes. You can easily bookmark any implementation example from its detailed view and revisit it anytime in Bookmarks section.
Yes. You can download any implementation example as a PDF directly from its detailed view for easy reference and sharing.
Yes. You can access the complete data file in Google Sheets format , covering all the implementation examples.
Yes. If you have a DPI implementation example that could benefit others, or if you'd like to suggest corrections or share feedback, you can do so through the Collaborate section.
The aim is to keep the Explorer updated as new contributions are received. In addition, as further research and resources become available, updates are planned on a quarterly basis.
Yes. You can the mailing list to receive the latest updates, learn about new implementation examples, and stay connected as the community grows.