This report is authored by Dr. Hemant Adarkar, Senior Fellow, Artha Global; Sridhar Ganapathy, Principal, Artha Global; Vikram Sinha, Former Junior Fellow, Artha Global; and Tvesha Sippy, Former Associate, Artha Global.
Report name
**Who wrote this report? **
Artha Global is a policy organisation that supports global partners to design, implement and institutionalise practices that promote prosperity and resilience, with a primary focus on the developing world. They provide actionable research, support policy implementation and work to institutionalise change.
Over the next few decades, the developing world will negotiate overlapping transitions: from rural to urban, farm to factory, informal to formal, brown to green, analogue to digital. Artha helps governments manage these transitions, and the inevitable dislocations they cause, in order to secure long-term prosperity and social stability for citizens.
Artha believes that the multiple challenges of the 21st century require new thinking that cuts across the traditional boundaries of geography, disciplines and interests. Therefore, they leverage their global network of experts to help craft new development agendas, create consensus and build broad coalitions across governments, business, academia, philanthropy and civil society.
Artha's research is housed in six centres: Emerging Cities, Access to Justice, Technology and Innovation, Rapid Insights, Public Health and Inclusive Growth.
Best quote
DPI is one of the most significant bets in the evolution of the modern state. It represents a vision of public good that is an ethical and practical paradigm shift.
**Key takeaways: **
- Operational Capacity Building Dependent on Strategic Leadership: While capacity building for operational roles is essential, it can only be effective when technical leadership is aware of talent availability and gaps, guiding hiring and professional development plans. Operational roles, such as programming and network security, are important for long-term sustainability, but these roles are often supplied by vendors embedded in projects.
- Challenges in Attracting and Retaining Talent: Governments struggle to attract or retain talent equivalent to roles like enterprise architects and chief digital transformation officers, crucial for architecting solutions, procurement and managing vendors.
- Immediate Need for Strategic Technical Talent: The most pressing requirement is for technical capacity building at the executive, senior practitioner, or decision-maker level with at least 10 years of experience. These individuals are crucial for making strategic technical choices, managing digital projects and ensuring effective implementation of DPI initiatives.
- Cybersecurity Prioritisation and Vendor Management: Cybersecurity training is not a priority for governments, but it is increasingly becoming crucial to secure DPI implementations, which are prime targets of cyber intrusions. Governments must have strategic control over vendors to avoid vendor lock-in, necessitating the ability to manage and understand the source code. Lack of collaboration between project roadmaps and a country's overall digital strategy leads to adoption of a lack of interoperable systems and a fragmented e-government landscape.
- A Localised Solution: A 'Resource Hub Network' to address capacity gaps, with locally-owned regional hubs focusing on trust, collaboration, local ownership, sustainability and modular/flexible support is proposed. The first phase involves collaborating with existing networks, expanding impact and assessing operational needs and the second phase focuses on JIT support, designing capacity-building programmes and catalysing emerging strategic capabilities for shared infrastructure and emerging technologies.
- Challenges and Impact Measurement: Political economy challenges, including retaining talent and government focus on national sovereignty need active consideration. Impact measurement should include both quantitative and qualitative metrics, and it is critical for these efforts to build credibility in their local ecosystem with a long-term commitment to strengthening capacity.
Why should you read this report?
Governments worldwide, especially in developing economies, are embracing digital transformation through the deployment of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), encompassing digital identity, payments and data exchanges. This foundational framework fosters state capacity, inclusive growth and operational efficiency. To achieve this, governments increasingly rely on Digital Public Goods (DPGs), leveraging open source software, standards and content for collaborative and cost-effective development. However, a prevalent challenge is the shortage of technical skills within government, hindering the effective design, execution and maintenance of DPI projects. This skill gap results in costly and unsustainable implementations, often reinforcing reliance on proprietary solutions. To address this, supporting governments in building technical capacity becomes crucial, ensuring strategic control over national assets. Navigating the complexities, this report proposes a model that prioritises collaborations with trusted academic institutions and regional hubs for capacity-constrained environments.
This report illuminates the pivotal role of strategic technical capacity for successful use of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI.) With insights into the complexities and challenges, it offers a ‘hub’ model for collaborative and sustainable capacity building, emphasising the need to establish trust, credibility and synergy with government initiatives. The hubs aim to promote good DPI, help governments achieve strategic control of digital infrastructure and build sustainable technical leadership in government.
Who is this report for?
This report is essential for government officials, policymakers and technology professionals involved in or concerned with digital transformation initiatives globally. The insights provided are particularly relevant for individuals and organisations operating in developing economies where the deployment of DPI is a pragmatic choice. The report offers valuable guidance on addressing the pervasive issue of technical skills shortages within government, providing a model for effective capacity building.
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