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Building Open Digital States: How DPGs Create Value for Digital Public Infrastructure

January 19, 2026

Authors: Gordon LaForge and Akash Kapur, with support from Jon Lloyd, Director of Advocacy and 50-in-5 Program Director, and Max Kintisch, Director of Research & Urgent Global Challenges, DPGA Secretariat

As governments around the world accelerate digital transformation, a quiet tension is shaping the global digital landscape. Digital technologies are spreading rapidly—especially across the Global South—yet control over core digital infrastructure is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small number of firms and countries. For policymakers, this combination of diffusion and dependency raises urgent questions about digital sovereignty, resilience, and long-term sustainability.Digital public infrastructure (DPI) has emerged partly in response to this challenge. Foundational systems for identity, payments, and data exchange are increasingly seen not just as technical platforms, but as public infrastructure that underpins inclusive growth and effective governance. Within this shift, digital public goods (DPGs)—open-source software, open data, open AI systems, and open content that meet the DPG Standard—are playing a growing role as core elements of DPI.But while interest in DPG-based DPI is growing fast, evidence of its real-world impact has remained thin, and fragmented. What value do DPGs actually create for governments and societies? And under what conditions do they deliver lasting benefits?A new report, Building Open Digital States: Country Case Studies on the Impact of DPGs for DPI, helps answer these questions by combining a review of existing evidence with in-depth country case studies from the Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, and Rwanda. This report also contains a framework for how to understand the value of DPG adoption from an economic, social, governance, and political lens. From Adoption to Impact: Why Evidence MattersMuch of the global conversation on DPGs has focused on adoption—the question of how many countries and users are using open-source platforms for digital ID, payments, or health systems. But adoption alone does not tell us whether these systems are delivering meaningful outcomes.The report responds to growing calls from governments, multilaterals, and development partners for more rigorous evidence on the impact of DPGs for DPI. Rather than starting from abstract metrics, it asks a more grounded question: what do policymakers themselves hope to achieve when they adopt DPGs—and how does value actually show up in practice?A Framework for Understanding the Value of DPGsAt the core of the report is a DPG-for-DPI Value Framework that identifies four dimensions of value that matter most to national decision-makers:Economic value: Including cost savings, reduced vendor lock-in, increased competition, increased innovation, and the stimulation of domestic digital markets.Social value: Expanding access to essential services such as health, identity, and payments—especially for underserved populations—and supporting progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.Governance value: Strengthening state capacity, interoperability across institutions, data-driven decision-making, and anti-corruption efforts.Political value: Enhancing digital sovereignty, strategic autonomy, global participation, and a country’s ability to shape its digital future on its own terms.Crucially, the framework also highlights ecosystem effects—the indirect, cumulative benefits that emerge over time, such as trust in public systems, local technical capacity, and innovation spillovers. These effects are often the hardest to measure, but they are frequently the most durable, and often these benefits only reveal themselves in the medium to long term.What the Country Cases ShowThe three country case studies illustrate how DPGs create value across these dimensions when embedded in coherent DPI strategies:1. In the Philippines, open-source platforms such as MOSIP and Mojaloop are being used to reduce dependence on proprietary vendors, lower long-term costs, and expand financial inclusion—enabling millions of previously unbanked citizens to access formal financial services.Digital Autonomy and Ownership. The primary value proposition is gaining greater ownership and control over the country’s digital transformation path, after a history of disadvantageous experiences with external vendors.Cost-savings. DPGs offer the potential to save costs both for public agencies and citizens, such as a 95% reduction in the total cost of an interoperable instant payments system. Financial Inclusion. The introduction of PhilSys has enabled as many as 8.3 million additional Filipinos to open bank accounts and further gains to inclusion are expected from the scaling up of pilots.2. In Kyrgyzstan, the X-Road–based Tunduk interoperability platform has saved citizens millions of hours by eliminating paper-based processes, while also serving as a powerful anti-corruption tool and reinforcing national control over sensitive data.Strategic Autonomy. The use of a DPG, via its open source nature, allowed the country to maintain control over its national data and avoid vendor lock-in.Economic Efficiency. In 2024 alone, the system saved citizens an estimated 21 million hours and 1.7 billion soms ($19 million).Market Innovation. The platform served as a foundation for the private fintech market, enabling open banking and new G2B business models. Social Contract. The system strengthened trust by making data silos and public service opacity a visible and quantifiable governance failure rather than an accepted reality.3. In Rwanda, long-term investment in DPGs such as DHIS2 and Mojaloop has strengthened health outcomes, enabled a data-driven COVID-19 response, and catalysed a domestic innovation ecosystem—positioning the country as a regional leader in DPI. Strategic Autonomy. DPGs enabled Rwanda to own and govern core digital systems, avoiding vendor lock-in and maintaining sovereign control over national data and development path.Health System Transformation. DHIS2 improved data completeness from 88% to 95% and timeliness from 60% to 90%+, enabling targeted interventions. Maternal mortality fell by over 50% (476 to 203 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2010-2019). During Covid, Rwanda achieved 77%+ full vaccination coverage using DHIS2-integrated digital certificates and national ID linkage, ranking among top African performers in testing and vaccination.Innovation and Market Competition. Implementation of Mojaloop has eased market concentration and improved payments interoperability. It also increased the capacity and expanded customer base of local firms , demonstrating how DPGs can catalyze startup ecosystems.Regional Leadership. Rwanda exports DHIS2 and Mojaloop expertise to neighboring countries, and contributes innovations back to the global DPGecosystem. The country is recognized as a regional—and, increasingly, global—leader in the DPI space.Across all three cases, DPGs are not simply cheaper software alternatives. They function as institution-building tools that reshape markets, strengthen governance, and expand state capacity.Lessons for Policymakers and PractitionersSeveral cross-cutting lessons emerge from the analysis:The impact of DPGs is as much political as social or economic. Although often unstated or under-recognized, political considerations–such as increased sovereignty, autonomy, and long-term institutional control—are among the most important benefits sought by policymakers. .Incremental implementation matters. Phased rollouts, parallel systems, and pragmatic integration with legacy infrastructure reduce risk and improve sustainability.Capacity-building is essential. Open code only delivers autonomy when governments invest in people, institutions, and local ecosystems.Incentives and mandates matter. DPGs succeed when institutional authority and market incentives align around interoperability and reuse.Crisis moments can accelerate impact. COVID-19 validated many DPG investments and helped lock in long-term political support.Why This Matters NowAs more countries invest in DPI, choices made today will shape digital ecosystems for decades. The evidence in this report suggests that DPGs offer a credible pathway for countries to build open, inclusive, and resilient digital states—if they are implemented strategically and governed well.Moving forward, the challenge is not whether DPGs work, but how governments, funders, and practitioners can better measure their impact, learn from real-world experience, and invest in the institutional foundations that allow DPGs to thrive.The full report offers a deeper look at how to do that—and invites further research, collaboration, and evidence-building to strengthen the global DPG ecosystem.

How the DPG Standard and the Universal DPI Safeguards Framework are Charting a Safe and Inclusive Digital Future

January 12, 2026

Authors: Amreen Taneja, Standards Lead, DPGA Secretariat; Francesco Stabilito, Project Manager, Office of Digital and Emerging Technologies; and Naveen Varshan Illavarasan, DPI Specialist, United Nations Development Programme

Digital systems are shaping how millions of people access essential services, from healthcare and education to financial inclusion. The stakes for getting these systems designed and implemented right from the outset have never been higher. This was evident during the recent Annual Members Meeting of the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) in Brazil, which highlighted how countries are increasingly leveraging open, interoperable building blocks to power their digital infrastructure.Digital public goods (DPGs) sit at the heart of this digital transformation. When integrated into the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) approach, these technologies can unlock unprecedented opportunities for inclusive development. But opportunity alone is not enough. The technologies and systems being built must be inherently safe and inclusive, and uphold fundamental human rights from the ground up. This article explores how recent updates to the DPG Standard and the Universal DPI Safeguards Framework are working in lockstep to nurture a cohesive ecosystem where technologies originating from the DPG community are designed to be safe and inclusive by default.The DPG Standard serves as the global benchmark for recognizing not only digital public goods, but technologies that can be safely adopted, adapted and scaled to advance sustainable development. To qualify as a DPG, a solution must be open source, contribute to advancing SDGs, and meet rigorous additional criteria outlined across nine indicators in areas such as licensing, documentation, privacy, security, and platform independence. Recent updates to the DPG Standard establish a stronger, more explicit safety-by-design foundation. The revised criteria clearly articulate expectations for privacy, security and responsible AI, ensuring these safeguards are integral to how DPGs are assessed. As a result, technologies recognized as DPGs demonstrate, from the outset, clear baseline commitments to user protection, data transparency and accountability.The Universal DPI Safeguards Framework, first released in 2024 by the DPI Safeguards initiative is the result of extensive global multi-stakeholder consultations involving 44 working group members, global convenings, consultations with international organizations, and local in-country engagement. The Framework was updated in 2025 following feedback from the ecosystem to ensure its continued relevance and practicality. It provides a comprehensive, rights-based approach for governing and ensuring responsible DPI implementation across the whole DPI lifecycle. The Framework is structured around 18 Foundational and Operational Principles that are designed to mitigate risks grouped into three core categories: safety, inclusion, and structural vulnerabilities.

Leveraging DPGs for Rapid Response to Urgent Global Challenges

December 15, 2025

Authors: Max Kintisch, Director of Research & Urgent Global Challenges, DPGA Secretariat

The global development landscape is facing a dual crisis. On one hand, we are witnessing a rise in Urgent Global Challenges (UGCs)—events that exceed routine disaster response capacities, frequently cross borders, and require coordinated international action. On the other hand, the resources available to meet these challenges had been shrinking, with global aid budgets having declined by up to 17% in 2025.This raises a central strategic question: How can institutions ensure that digital systems can be mobilised rapidly and effectively when the next major shock occurs?The DPGA Strategy 2023–2028 identifies a clear objective: by 2028, digital public goods (DPGs) should form a default component of the international community’s approach to preventing and responding to UGCs. Target 4 outlines the development of a global methodology for rapidly establishing communities of practice, as well as financing mechanisms to support relevant DPGs.At the DPGA Annual Members Meeting (AMM25) in Brasília, policymakers, practitioners, and technologists met to translate this objective into a concrete trajectory for 2026.Defining the Scope: Readiness for ResponseWhile mitigation and long-term recovery remain essential, discussions at the AMM25 underscored that the distinctive contribution of DPGs lies in rapid operational activation. UGCs are characterised by urgent timelines, uncertainty, and the need for coordinated digital action across institutions and borders. For this reason, the emerging focus is on scalable process models—structured methodologies that enable governments and partners to deploy and adapt digital tools quickly and systematically.It also became clear that rapid response is a cross-cutting theme that interacts with broader digital and governance ecosystems. Crises often generate significant pressures in areas such as:Information pollution, where inaccurate or misleading information disrupts coordination and decision-making;Digital public infrastructure (DPI), where foundational systems such as identity, payments, and registries must remain functional under degraded conditions or elevated demand;Climate-related events, which increasingly require real-time data, interoperable systems, and rapid mobilisation of sector-specific tools.These intersections demonstrate that readiness for response is not a discrete domain but an integral component of multiple DPGA workstreams.Participants also identified key vulnerabilities that frequently arise in crisis contexts, helping to clarify where process models must provide operational guidance:Delays or barriers in data sharing, often linked to unclear legal frameworks or governance arrangements;Connectivity disruptions, reinforcing the need for offline capability and low-bandwidth optimisation;Insufficient local implementation capacity, leading to reliance on external actors during periods when local expertise is most needed;Fragmentation among digital systems, where tools exist but lack validated workflows, integration pathways, or predefined institutional responsibilities.Given the evolving nature of UGCs and the variation in country contexts, this scope will remain an ongoing discussion within the DPGA community.Evidence on DPG Value: Rapid Adaptation and ResilienceAt the AMM25, experts presented concrete examples demonstrating how DPGs have supported rapid response in practice. Two attributes were repeatedly highlighted: Rapid adaptation and resilience.1. Rapid Adaptation and Repurposing During COVID-19, the ability of open-source platforms to be reconfigured on short timelines proved critical. Pamod Amarakoon (Director HISP Sri Lanka) described how DHIS2 was adapted to support a port-of-entry tracking system within days. This reflects broader research showing that open and modular systems enable unplanned yet essential adaptations during emergencies.2. Resilience: Stable and Scalable Infrastructure Emily Bennett, Head of Digital Public Solutions at UNICC, highlighted the importance of robust and secure digital infrastructure to maintain continuity of operations under crisis conditions. Building on this, she also noted that tools deployed in emergency contexts can continue to deliver value well beyond the crisis itself. She pointed to UNICC’s experience deploying iReport in eight countries, initially designed for short-term use around critical events, but later institutionalised by several governments once its broader usefulness became clear. This experience highlights the importance of considering post-emergency sustainability and long-term operational use when deploying DPGs for crisis response. Likewise, Zhongxin Chen, Senior IT Officer, D4I Lead at FAO) demonstrated how the organisation’s digital infrastructure for agrifood systems - FAO Agro-informatics Platform (FAIP) supports emergency agricultural and food security operations, pointing to the sectoral breadth of DPG relevance.Insights from Brasília: The "Status Quo" MapFollowing the expert panel, workshop participants engaged in a co-design exercise. The resulting "status quo" maps highlighted several persistent challenges:Technology: Offline capability remains essential for disaster resilience, and participants underscored the importance of low-code/no-code approaches to support rapid local adaptation.Governance: In many countries,legal frameworks to support interoperability and cross-border data sharing are still absent. Internal governance structures for emergency data use are also frequently underdeveloped.Support and Capacity: Discussions highlighted limited availability of local implementer networks and a continued reliance on external consultants, both of which hinder rapid deployment and long-term sustainability.The Way Ahead: Ideas for Strengthening ReadinessDuring the discussions, participants put forward several possible ideas for how readiness could be strengthened, without treating any of them as settled solutions. One idea was to create a shared, pre-crisis environment where different digital public goods could be set up quickly, tested together, and run through realistic emergency scenarios to surface gaps and improve how systems work together before a real shock occurs. Another idea focused on people rather than systems, suggesting more structured ways to build local technical capacity so that technologists on the ground are better prepared to deploy, adapt, and maintain digital tools under crisis conditions. A third idea addressed institutional bottlenecks, pointing to the value of having practical legal and procedural resources prepared in advance—such as guidance on procurement, data sharing, and decision-making—to reduce delays when governments and partners need to act quickly. These ideas were discussed as part of a broader set of options, with the understanding that further exploration and refinement will be needed as the work continues. Strengthening readiness for response will require continued collaboration, evidence, and alignment across sectors and regions. The ideas emerging from Brasília offer a concrete foundation, but their impact will depend on the engagement of a broader community of partners. We invite stakeholders to help shape and advance this work as the DPGA refines its 2026 agenda. For questions or to get involved, please contact Max Kintisch, Director of Research & Urgent Global Challenges of the DPGA Secretariat, at max@digitalpublicgoods.net.

Reflections from the 2025 Annual Members Meeting in Brasília

December 1, 2025

Authors: Lucy Harris, Chief Operating Officer, and Carol Matos, Senior Communications and Marketing Coordinator, DPGA Secretariat

Last week, the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) concluded its fourth Annual Members Meeting (AMM)— its first ever in South America—with three energising days of collaboration, shared learning, and collective momentum. Taking place in Brasília and held in partnership with the Government of Brazil, represented by the Controladoria-Geral da União (CGU), the Ministério da Gestão e da Inovação em Serviços Públicos, and DATAPREV, this year’s AMM served as a capstone to 2025’s steady global progress and growing interest in digital public goods.Over the course of this year’s Annual Members Meeting, more than a hundred representatives from DPGA member organisations - including country governments, in addition to digital public good (DPG) product owners, explored how DPGs can help countries and development partners, including multilateral development banks and UN-agencies, navigate geopolitical and technological shifts while delivering real benefits for people’s lives and for the planet. It also served as an opportunity to welcome Co-Develop, co-coordinator of the 50-in-5 campaign, as the newest member of the DPGA.This year’s AMM reflected how far the DPGA has come, and the role it is increasingly poised to play amid rapid advances in technology and significant geopolitical change.The gathering opened with reflections on key achievements from the past year, including:Growth and maturity across the DPG ecosystem, seen through continued expansion of the DPG Registry—now with well over 200 verified digital public goods—and increased collaboration among DPGs themselves, demonstrating how open, interoperable digital solutions can drive scale and impact.Strengthened global alignment, with DPGs front and centre at major convenings including COP30, UN Open Source Week, the Internet Governance Forum in Norway, and the annual 50-in-5 Milestone Event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Continued advances in understanding how DPGs can be used for DPI implementation, including the launch of the DPG4DPI Collection, which is already helping countries more easily identify DPGs that enable safe, inclusive, and interoperable DPI.Significant progress on climate, marked by a new framework to identify DPGs for climate action and Brazil’s announcement of a newly shared open-source module derived from its Rural Environmental Registry (RER).Strengthening efforts to sustain DPGs, with growing alignment on the need for upstream maintenance, flexible financing, and stronger contribution pathways to ensure that governments and partners can adopt, adapt, and maintain DPGs over time.Together, these achievements created a strong foundation for workshops and roundtable discussions that unfolded in Brasília.“We believe that open technologies and global digital governance contribute to better governments, but also to stronger democracies and enhanced sovereignty. These joint activities and collective sharing really embody that spirit. Let us all work together in that direction to promote inclusive and sustainable development, powered by open technology strategies.” - Cristina Kiomi Mori - Vice Minister of Management and Innovation in Public Services, Government of Brazil

Co-Develop Joins the Digital Public Goods Alliance

November 26, 2025

Authors: DPGA Secretariat

The Digital Public Goods Alliance is pleased to welcome Co-Develop as its newest member, marking a step forward in advancing safe, inclusive, and interoperable digital public infrastructure (DPI) globally. Announced during the DPGA Annual Members Meeting in Brasília, Brazil, Co-Develop’s membership strengthens the global movement to scale digital public goods as critical foundations for equitable digital transformation.As part of the DPGA’s 2025 Roadmap, Co-Develop will focus on four key work streams:Accelerating DPG adoption at country level with targeted support for a variety of solutions including MOSIP, Mojaloop, Mifos, OpenCRVS, OpenFn, OpenSPP, and DIGIT.Championing the DPI Safeguards Framework by supporting the development and implementation of comprehensive policy safeguards that address governance, design, deployment, and use of DPI.Co-leading the 50-in-5 campaign alongside the Digital Public Goods Alliance by engaging countries, organising peer learning exchanges, and providing support to 50 countries seeking to deploy safe, inclusive, and interoperable DPI by 2028.Expanding domain-specific DPG solutions by identifying and supporting DPGs relevant to DPI that address sector-specific challenges in agriculture, climate, and health."Digital public goods play a critical role for countries seeking a robust and rapid approach to deploying digital public infrastructure", said Tim Wood, Chief Partnerships Officer at Co-Develop. "By joining the DPGA, we are emphasizing Co-Develop’s commitment to help counties identify pathways to leapfrog traditional development trajectories using proven, open-source technologies."“Co-Develop’s membership to the DPGA will significantly strengthen the use and understanding of digital public goods for digital public infrastructure. Their co-coordination of the 50-in-5 campaign, deep country engagement, and commitment to safe, inclusive, and interoperable digital public infrastructure directly advances our shared mission to empower governments with DPGs they can trust and adapt to meet their contextual needs.” Liv Marte Nordhaug, CEO, DPGA Secretariat.To learn more about Co-Develop joining the DPGA, visit their blog.To learn more about the activities they will be undertaking as part of their DPGA membership, visit the Roadmap.

Four Policies That Can Unlock the Promise of Digital Public Goods

November 21, 2025

Authors: Jon Lloyd, Director of Advocacy, and Lucy Harris, Chief Operating Officer, DPGA Secretariat

Digital public goods (DPGs) are open-source technologies that countries can freely adopt to accelerate digital transformation, improve residents’ lives, and drive economic growth. For governments and large organisations, DPGs hold the promise of increasing efficiency and technology transparency while preserving their digital sovereignty, and avoiding costly lock-ins.However, in order to better facilitate the potential of DPGs to deliver on these benefits, governments and organisations should prioritise implementing policies, principles and frameworks. Doing so could allow them to more effectively implement DPGs that address country needs which may include evolving their digital public infrastructure.For this reason, the DPGA Secretariat included dedicated emphasis on this as part of the Calls for Collaborative Action that were launched in November 2024.

DPG4DPI Financing – Calls for Collaborative Action Progress Update

November 20, 2025

Authors: Liv Marte Nordhaug, Chief Executive Officer, DPGA Secretariat

Last year, the DPGA Secretariat launched its first-ever set of Calls for Collaborative Actions as a way to galvanise members, DPG product owners, and other stakeholders around priority actions needed for advancing collective impact. Reflecting the priority that countries worldwide are giving to building and evolving their digital public infrastructure, which can also be seen in the 50-in-5 Campaign co-coordinated by the DPGA Secretariat alongside Co-Develop, one of the four calls is for “250 million USD in financing so that DPGs that enable the implementation of safe, inclusive and interoperable digital public infrastructure can be supported until 2030”.2025 Key Activities and Stakeholder OutputsAn initial step taken by the DPGA Secretariat was the creation of the DPG4DPI Collection, in order to point to the most DPI-relevant solutions available on the DPG Registry. Criteria for determining which DPGs should go into the collection have been developed with inputs from Co-Develop and the Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure (CDPI), and the DPG4DPI Collection will be expanded when additional relevant DPGs are identified. We have also convened multiple discussions with relevant funders, including the EkStep Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), and the Steele Foundation for Hope. In addition to encouraging new financing, another objective of these conversations has been to understand the motivations of different funders that are interested in supporting DPGs4DPI, and also how they see their financing as part of broader sustainability and contribution models. We are aware that several of the funders we have convened have made, or are planning to make, new financial commitments for DPGs4DPI in 2025, and we will provide updated numbers once they are public. We have also engaged additional stakeholders interested in contributing to the call in different ways, such as the sharing of learnings and best practices and case studies. These contributions were from UN agencies such as UNICEF, product owners like OpenCRVS, and civil society organisations including the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN). A key suggestion made by OKFN was to engage multilateral development banks more in evolving DPG sustainability models, given their important role as both grant providers and lenders to countries implementing their digital public infrastructure. This is particularly relevant given the large cuts to international development assistance in 2025, which are making funders ask more questions about the cost-effectiveness of interventions. As freely adoptable and adaptable, and open-source components, DPGs are extremely well positioned to be at the forefront of a new international development paradigm built around reuse, sharing, and collaboration, but only if we create the right enabling environment and recognise their broader value.Next Steps - Priorities for 2026In 2026, we will continue to mobilise stakeholders to achieve the 250 million USD goal set out in this call. However, we will increasingly see the effort to mobilise grant financing as part of developing a more comprehensive sustainability model. Our goal is for this to be a model where multilateral development banks, private sector companies, government agencies, and other stakeholders involved in DPGs4DPI planning, implementation, and maintenance processes all contribute back so that the core project remains robust and relevant.

How Do We Ensure that DPGs are Not Just Adopted, but Sustained as Well?

November 20, 2025

Authors: Max Kintisch, Director of Research & Urgent Global Challenges, DPGA Secretariat

As countries accelerate investments in digital public infrastructure (DPI), digital public goods (DPGs) have become essential building blocks for implementors—providing open-source, reusable platforms for countries to implement digital identity, payments, and data exchange systems effectively. However, the sustainability of these systems hinges on creating financing models that support the upstream maintenance of their shared open-source components—a gap the DPGA’s Calls for Collaborative Action, including its USD 250 million call for DPGs that power DPI, aims to address. Their value is clear: countries and implementers often turn to DPGs to reduce duplication, lower costs, avoid vendor lock-in, and enable countries to adapt systems to local needs. Yet adoption alone does not sustain value nor guarantee these outcomes. That depends on contribution back to the core DPGs—a form of collective stewardship involving continuous improvements, documentation, localisation, and shared learning that keeps DPGs secure, interoperable, up-to-date, and relevant across contexts.“Organisations that contribute back to the open-source projects they depend on don’t just give — they learn, innovate, and capture more value over time.” Frank Nagle, Research Scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology & Chief Economist, The Linux FoundationToday, the contribution loop for DPGs is underdeveloped. Most of the financing efforts target initial deployments of a DPG, neglecting the upstream maintenance of the open-source core that the DPG is built on. Many governments lack the institutional structures— whether they be Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs), procurement policies, or developer training pathways—that can make systematic contribution possible. And while DPGs are open-by-design, their contribution channels, governance models, and incentives vary widely, creating uneven participation and sometimes reinforcing capability gaps.Despite these challenges, emerging evidence shows that when contribution back to the core is intentionally supported, the benefits compound and multiply. Countries gain stronger digital capability, vendors build products and services around shared components, and global improvements circulate faster—reducing costs and strengthening resilience for all.There is no single solution to close this gap. In this article, however, we outline several modalities to consider—centred on three shifts that can help unlock the shared value of DPGs.

Mozilla Joins the Digital Public Goods Alliance

November 12, 2025

Authors: DPGA Secretariat

The Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) is pleased to welcome Mozilla as its newest member. A global advocate for open-source and trustworthy technology, Mozilla, by joining the DPGA, will help strengthen shared efforts to ensure that technology serves the public interest and advances the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).Mozilla’s commitment to openness is well established through initiatives such as Common Voice, whose multilingual and inclusive dataset is recognised as a digital public good that teaches machines how real people speak. The organisation also plays a leading role in advancing open-source AI and shaping policies that promote transparency, interoperability, and human-centred innovation.As part of the DPGA’s 2025 Roadmap, Mozilla will focus on three key work streams:Promoting DPGs in the Open-Source Ecosystem: Mozilla will keep advocating, engaging on policy, and publishing research to strengthen conditions and funding for open-source, public-interest technology—especially in AI.DPGs and Digital Commons: Mozilla maintains key open-source projects (e.g., Common Voice, Firefox, Thunderbird) and backs open-source AI through product work (including Mozilla.ai) and Mozilla Ventures.Funding Open Source & Public-Interest Technology: Building on its roots, Mozilla will continue funding open-source tools that address complex socio-technical issues, launching an incubator in late 2025 to help community projects achieve long-term sustainability.“Open-source AI and open data aren’t just about tech,” said Mark Surman, President of Mozilla. “They’re about access to technology and progress for people everywhere. As a double bottom line, mission-driven enterprise, Mozilla is proud to be part of the DPGA and excited to work toward our joint mission of advancing open-source, trustworthy technology that puts people first.”“I am thrilled to welcome Mozilla as an official member of the DPGA. Mozilla has long played a pivotal role in the history and momentum of the open-source movement, demonstrating that mission-driven open-source software can be world-class and competitive while stewarding a truly free and open web. This aligns deeply with the premise of digital public goods and the purpose of the DPGA — a natural fit, and we are delighted to have them join us.” Lucy Harris, COO, DPGA Secretariat To learn more about Mozilla joining the DPGA, visit their blog.To learn more about the activities they will be undertaking as part of their DPGA membership, visit the Roadmap.