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Why & How to become DPGs

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The Digital Public Goods Alliance

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What are digital public goods (DPGs)?

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Why does it matter?

Promotion to a broad global audience: Submitting your solution to be published and vetted will make your work visible to a broad audience of governments, NGOs, and non-profit organizations.

Global endorsement and usability: If your project meets the DPG Standard, it will be officially considered a Digital Public Good, and will allow you to promote the solution as one endorsed in line with global technical standards.

Deployment opportunities: As a DPG, your solution will be included in the Alliances recommended packages for governments and UN agencies.

Technical and financial support: You gain access to financial & technical resources of the Alliance

In short – becoming a Digital Public Good opens avenues for scaling:

Why does it matter?

In short – becoming a Digital Public Good opens avenues for scaling:

Promotion to a broad global audience: The DPG Alliance and its platform has been endorsed by the UN Secretary General and aims to become the global go-to-platform for open source solutions. Submitting your solution to be published and vetted will make your work visible to a broad audience of governments, NGOs, and non-profit organizations.
Global endorsement and usability: The DPG Alliance has created technical standards for open source solutions, allowing users to see if and how solutions meet certain technical and quality criteria. Communities of Practice also give feedback on certain areas for strengthening. If your project meets the DPG Standard, it will be officially considered a Digital Public Good, and will allow you to promote the solution as one endorsed in line with global technical standards.
Deployment opportunities: UNICEF and other Alliance partners are working directly with national governments, UN agencies, and others who are looking for open source solutions to deploy in their countries. As part of the platform, the Alliance can include your solutions in these explorations.
Connecting with technical and financial partners: The Alliance is developing partnerships with organisations and investors who can provide your solution with the next level of financing and technical assistance.

Most recently at an our UN General Assembly event, the Secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Ministyr of Electronic and Industry Technology has stated “DPGs are an article of faith for India's digital ecosystem & create open, low entry barrier platforms that enhance government & private sector-led services, continuous innovation & enable building on top of what’s available to create new services.”

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DPG Registry

digitalpublicgoods.net/registry/

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Communities of Practice

Communities of Practice (CoPs) are groups of experts who convene to support the discovery, assessment and advancement of high-potential Digital Public Goods within a priority area.

In recognition of this the DPGA also uses another mechanism to identify DPGs that are highly relevant to specific development needs and sectors: Communities of Practice.

In Communities of Practice we convene experts from different organizations to align on definitions, processes and to collectively identify, assess and advance critical digital solutions.

The DPGA convenes communities of practice in areas such as climate change adaptation, financial inclusion, and of course, health. In each of these communities, identify a critical development need for digital solutions. Produce a list of DPGs that are highly relevant to that topic, and identifies what additional assessment is required.

The DPGA then reviews each projects against this criteria to produce a list of open source solutions of high relevance to that topic that address all of the criteria. ��

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Pathfinding Pilots

Time-bound, in country engagements led by DPGA members working with partners and governments to pilot new ways to increase discovery, use of, development or investment in digital public goods.

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Pathfinding Pilots

DHIS2 & DIVOC

Project AEDES

Apart from identifying Accessible Kazakhstan which recently got nominated as Digital Public Good.

Current pathfinding pilots include…

The Global Digital Library in Rwanda
DHIS2 in The Gambia, Uganda, Eswatini and Sri Lanka
As well as efforts on education in Vietnam, innovation in Kazakhstan and Ghana, and working with youth in Jordan.

First, in early 2021 DHIS2 and DIVOC, two digital public goods, teamed up in Sri Lanka. DHIS2 built and launched a COVID-19 tracker app in Sri Lanka that was scaled worldwide. DHIS2 was also used to track vaccines across the country. Then, they connected with DIVOC to issue vaccine certificates for those fully vaccinated in Sri Lanka.

Second, is Project AEDES (Advanced Early Dengue Prediction and Exploration Service), developed in the Philippines, which is a dengue data modelling prototype. In 2020, UNICEF and CirroLytix started working with AEDES on the possibility of becoming a DPG. UNICEF Innovation and UNICEF Philippines worked with Project AEDES to ensure their solution - which tracks and predicts outbreaks of dengue fever - became a DPG, meeting the DPG Standard across all indicators. The Philippines highlighted the importance of startups. Honourable Fortunato T. De La Peña, Secretary for the Department of Science and Technology for the Republic of the Philippines, shared information about AEDES, the Philippines first digital public good and, based on that experience, encouraged other governments to partner with startups to deploy innovations.

At the UNGA meeting, we convened leaders of member states within Minsitry of Innovation and Technology or equivalent within countries and the head of UNDP, UNICEF and UN Tech Envoy. The Philippines highlighted the importance of startups. Honourable Fortunato T. De La Peña, Secretary for the Department of Science and Technology for the Republic of the Philippines, shared information about AEDES, the Philippines first digital public good and, based on that experience, encouraged other governments to partner with startups to deploy innovations.

Through their experience implementing digital public goods, pathfinders help define use cases, identify needs, inform adaptations, and enable policy frameworks. Through pilots, they share learnings for both the creation of new DPGs from different approaches for building local capacity, and for existing DPGs that are locally managed through adaptation and implementation.

The goal isn’t always to scale globally, but could be regional or even just improving local deployments.

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Eligibility Questionnaire

https://digitalpublicgoods.net/eligibility/

Submission Guide

https://digitalpublicgoods.net/submission-guide/

The DPG Standard explained

https://github.com/DPGAlliance/DPG-Standard/blob/master/standard-questions.md

The DPG Submission Form

https://submission.digitalpublicgoods.net/

Nominate a Digital Public Good

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Make a “Full Submission”

Tips on How to Get it Right:

Refrain from selecting “UNKOWN”

Share all the relevant details and links

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Thank you

@DPGAlliance

@UNICEFinnovate

Cheryl Ng

cng@unicef.org

As of now, we have 60 Digital Public Goods in our registry. Recently we gathered leaders from 7 various countries at the UN General assembly, and leaders from the UN Tech Envoy, UNDP and UNICEF. They have now said “Digital Public Goods is not only the better solution, but it is the norm.” For only 60 Digital Public Goods in the registry, this does not seem like the norm. It is up to you and me to standardize and make this the norm.

There is a place for profit-making and proprietary business models in open source: Mala Kumar, Director of Tech for Social Good at GitHub, and Lucy Harris, Co-Lead of the Digital Public Goods Alliance Secretariat noted that the largest ICT companies are still some of the biggest contributors to open source and that building solutions on top of open source solutions can foster innovation and entrepreneurship.

We echo Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator, in calling for a whole-of-society approach to digital transformation and putting in place safeguards for technology by building DPG capacity, creating an enabling environment, and making these digital solutions more discoverable. Together these efforts can accelerate the attainment of the SDGs and ensure that no one is left behind.