The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> ANNOUNCER: Please welcome to the stage the session moderator, Mr. Thomas Davin.
>> THOMAS DAVIN: Your excellencies, distinguished guests, all protocol observed. Warmest of welcome to this high level session on digital public goods and digital cooperation. My name is Thomas Davin, Global Director for UNICEF, and I'm with my co‑moderator, Liv Marte Nordhaug, CEO of the Digital Public Good Alliance.
We are going to speak about digital public goods and digital cooperation for an hour and a half, we have the pleasure and honour to be joined by a number of eminent and senior leaders of the world, of different institutions. We will have a few videos and we even are going to try to ask you for your lens and your views on some subjects so we hope that the lunch was not too heavy and that you will be with us throughout this session. Warmest of welcome.
So what are digital public goods, what are we talking about? Digital public goods are defined as open source solutions that are relevant for the attainment of the SDG's and are designed as a "do no harm" and with the highest respect for privacy and applicable best practices. What this means in practice in that countries can freely adopt and adapt digital public goods and use them to build components of safe, inclusive, and interoperability digital public infrastructures according to their own priorities and context specific needs, of course.
At this stage we estimate there are about 200 DPGs currently in use that are helping countries advance financial inclusion, food security, crisis response, healthcare delivery, and public service efficiencies.
DPGs because of the power they offer in terms of Government effectiveness and efficiency but also service to the people are explicitly referenced in the Global Digital Compact, adopted in 2024 as key drivers of inclusive digital transformation, and innovation. And that includes a commitment to increase investment and funding towards the development.
Of course, when we talk about DPGs, it included digital collaboration. One comes with the other. It is really a way for a country, a community to develop a service, a solution that one other can build upon, can build further and develop a solution that is contextually more appropriate so that one doesn't have to reinvent the wheel every single time on similar services to the people or to Government agencies.
Part of what that means is that we need DPGs that can be shared a, adopted and continually improved. From a UNICEF lens this means we look at DPGs as a phenomenal pathway to growth, impact and service for the children that we serve. So, of course, it's dear to our hearts and we hope by the end of the session, it will be dear to all of you here and online. As we speak to intersections of DPGs and digital collaboration and Government services, let's hear from one of the examples that is happening here in Norway as a scene setting, which is called Altinn, and I understand is used by 100% of business and 90% of citizens in Norway. Let us hear from that experience so we get you familiar with the setting and what that means here.
>> THOMAS DAVIN: Fantastic example not a surprise at all, Norway has been at the forefront of digital public goods, both at home and what it means to the world and has been a proponent of DPGs becoming the norm around how we share, collaborate, connect with each other and how we build on another as we aim to service, again, the countries that we operate with and for, or the people that we operate for.
Let us dig deeper into maybe a wider perspective and one of the European Union, and I'm delighted to invite Henna Virkkunen. Warm welcome, please, over to your Keynote.
>> HENNA VIRKKUNEN: Thank you very much, and good afternoon, everybody. Many thanks to the organizers for convening this important panel on global digital cooperation and digital public goods and thank you for everybody who is present here during this topical discussion we will have. The theme of the session is particularly relevant as we have just as a European Union we have just adopted our new international digital strategy for the European Union.
The EU has very long standing history of digital cooperation with countries worldwide we can say, and this included our engagement through trade and technology Councils, also our digital partnerships and digital trade agreements with several partners, and we are also advancing collaboration under the global gateway initiative, but also through new security and defense partnerships with our allies.
As the technology revolution is reshaping now economies and societies, and also as the global geopolitical landscape is more challenging than ever, our new international digital strategy sends very clear message that the EU is stable and reliable partner open to digital cooperation with allies and partners.
While we are now engaging in strong efforts to boost our competitiveness in the European Union, in AI and also other key technologies in the EU, so we are also at the same time bearing it in mind to work with partners around the world to support their and our own digital transition. Indeed, we believe that no country or region can lead the technological revolution alone. Partners are needed here. So we also believe that AI is too fundamental for the future of humanity to be reduced to be disbursed among AI powers.
This concern rearms our commitment to building a rules based global digital order in line with our fundamental values. The international digital strategy proposes working together at EU level around three lines of action. Our first pillar is about deepening and broadening our digital partnerships with more advanced technical allies so we will deepen the partnership we have with our allies such Japan, Canada, Singapore, India, South Korea and with our neighbors.
And we will also establish new partnerships and foster collaboration among them so that they can connect through a new digital partnership network. We see that these partnerships, they include shared work on digital public infrastructure such as open source digital identity solutions based on the EU digital identity world which offer a model of privacy preserving secure and also interoperable public digital services.
Our cooperation with partner countries will focus on critical areas that are essential for robust, secure and human centric digital future, notably secure and trusted digital infrastructure, also emerging technologies, digital governance, cybersecurity, digital identities and digital public infrastructure, also online platforms.
The aim is to boost EU's and also our partner's respective tech competitiveness and sovereign innovation and promote regulatory cooperation.
But also as our second pillar, we have been underlining that we will also deploy an EU tech business offer to partner countries notably in Africa, also in Latin America or Asia. So we will do so by combining EU's private and public sector investments, notably through global gateway. The aim is to support the digital transition of partner countries incorporating components such as AI factories, investments in security and connectivity, digital public infrastructure or cybersecurity.
This offer included modular reusable building blocks, concrete digital public goods tailored to needs and anchored in standards and interoperability. So we will at the same time promote EU tech solutions, regulatory approach, standards and values.
Then on that pillar is to promote a rules‑based global digital order in line with our fundamental values, because we will continue promoting this digital order in line with our values and we say that it's very important in these times that we have international cooperation in this very crucial area.
We see that supporting tech competitiveness, economic security, security, defense, democracy and human rights as well as values and interests of the European Union and our partners across cross cutting priorities are the cross cutting priorities in all of these actions.
And the EU will also defend the multistakeholder model of Internet Governance upholding human rights, openness and also university connectivity.
And we actively engage in the World Summit on the Information Society, WSIS+20 review, calling for meaningful participation of all stakeholders.
We also strongly supporting the Internet Governance Forum advocating for its renewed and permanent mandate beyond this year, beyond 2025 as a forum for inclusive digital cooperation.
So let me close by highlighting one of the key aspects of the strategy, the EU's commitment to use as a part of our tech offer to countries with what we call our open Internet stack.
This is a curated catalog of open source digital components covering identity, trust, also decentralized platforms, cybersecurity, and interoperability.
The goal is to offer secure deployable digital solutions that can be adapted by users. As soon as the open Internet stack becomes operational, we will work with our partners to broaden its access to partner countries to meet also local needs there enhancing trust, reducing costs, also avoiding vendor lock in and enabling digital sovereignty while protecting privacy and security.
A world of rising digital fragmentation, supporting the open Internet stack is our way of defending a shared global infrastructure that serves the public good. In short, the EU is ready to work with partners to make the future Internet a better place, including also for our children. So I want to thank you, everybody, very much for participating in this event and I very much look forward to our discussion.
>> THOMAS DAVIN: Thank you so much. Can I invite you to stay with me for just a second. We are delighted to be inviting as well Minister Tung, the Minister for digitalization and public governance for Norway who is the host, warmest of welcome, please join us. We are going to try to dig into the concepts that we just opened together. If I may start with the host, first, thank you for having us, Minister, it's such a wonderful event. Some are often questioning whether DPGs are just a fad, a fake thing and are not really real, they are not adding value. Can you talk to what that means for you in Norway, we have heard a little bit about Altinn, but can you develop into what that means in Norway.
>> KARIANNE TUNG: Of course. Thank you, and thank you for being here and discussing and debating digital public goods. I think we need to get better at using our resources more efficient and effectively. And more than ever it's important that we cooperate, that we help each other, that we share technology both nationally, but also internationally.
And the whole idea behind the digital public good is exactly this mind set about sharing both nationally and internationally. We use it in Norway, I think it's easiest to say if anyone else has developed this before, then you don't need to do it again. That's also the reason why we established the Ministry of Digitization and Public Governance in Norway because we see that we needed better coordination and steering of the digitalization policy, and also when we look at the different digital solutions.
So by making solution that is based on open source, on open data, and OpenAI models and open standards that are within best practice, we do it possible for not only Norway but other countries to use the solution, and we saw a short video of Altinn, and the Altinn code if anyone wants to use the Altinn code, it's possible to use that and to make also own solution on top of this one. So Norway has always been a front runner in digital public goods and we want to contribute to the work in the years to come as well.
>> THOMAS DAVIN: Thank you so much, might I move to you. Very powerful Keynote. Thank you again. Lots of commitment, lots of desire to really be forceful around those commitments, around digital public goods. What is your sense on the open source type of solutions that Minister Tung just noticed?
>> HENNA VIRKKUNEN: This is, of course, is a very important part of the European Union's digital approach, really also develop the innovations also and make sure that everybody can benefit, because we say that also that kind of very important technologies and digital tools we are speaking about, they shouldn't be limited only for those who have massive resources, so it's very important that we are developing the technologies together, and, of course, open source like ideas or solutions, they have a very important basis for that that we can develop and also benefit together of new technologies and we can also work in the Democratic manner.
>> THOMAS DAVIN: Thank you so much indeed. That is very much we from a UNICEF lens look at open source technology as a way for others to really move forward. You have mentioned AI in particular, and when we look at capabilities and skills of AI in the countries that UNICEF operates, they are very diverse set of capabilities, and, indeed, one would hope that we can leverage the kind of AI leadership in terms of skills and availability of technical capacities in countries so that others can benefit without having to pay the cost of the development which is becoming quite expensive indeed for AI capabilities. Thank you again.
Minister Tung, can I go back to you if that's okay. Again, when we think of digital public goods, some query is that really aligned with national security, national sovereignty. Are we putting one against the other in can you help with thoughts on this?
>> KARIANNE TUNG: Thank you, I can understand why you are asking the question, because I think it's easy to think that the digital public goods or common digital solutions is not safety or secure enough but I don't agree. We see the example of the DHIS2 which is the largest health platform in the world. It is used in over 100 countries. It's safe and secure. I believe in a world where the pace of technology are running faster than ever, we all need to be a part of that, and to collaborate and work together on the digital public goods in a safe and secure way. I think that is the right solution that we have to do.
And for Norway, we always have been putting safety and security first also in our digital solution. It has been important before. Now, it is more important than ever. Of course, because we are living in the world we are living, but also because we need to keep trust in these different digital solutions because without trust we don't get the citizens to use the different digital public services and so forth. So to keep the trust, it is closely connected with security as well, and Altinn which we saw a good example of here, we are now using a lot of public funding to modernize Altinn, to build disability blocks which everybody can use and safety is in the forefront, in the front seat of doing this work as well.
So I really believe that the use of open source and digital public goods strengthen the possibilities for having a more safe and secure digital future as well.
>> THOMAS DAVIN: Thank you so much. Indeed, sometimes everybody can look into it and everybody can do whatever they want with your technology or solution, and that's not really what that means. What it means a code that everybody can build upon, but is then nestled within a digital public infrastructure that you mentioned, that is itself quite secure and safe for the users and the states that they serve.
I can see we are a little bit ahead of schedule, which is wonderful. Let me maybe offer any closing remarks, Minister Tung, you want to start?
>> KARIANNE TUNG: Yes, please, thank you. And regarding the security of the different solutions as well, because when the technology runs so fast and things happen every day, every minute, every second, then it's more important than ever to work together on the digital public goods as well to keep it safe and secure and we are not doing one thing in Norway, another thing in the EU and a third thing in Africa. Because we need to kind of not fight the pace of technology, but to keep up and then we have to work together, I believe.
>> THOMAS DAVIN: Thank you so much.
>> HENNA VIRKKUNEN: The European Union is known on that that we have been creating many rules when it comes to digital world because we want to make sure also that our citizens can trust, and at the same time we see the technologies have very much economic power and also power in our society. So for us it's very important that technologies that they are respecting our rules and values and our Democratic values and also, for example, what is illegal in our societies, it is illegal Internet.
So very much the same approach, but also now at the same time when we see that the technology is developing very fast, I also want to underline the importance of investing to skill serve our citizens especially when speaking young generation it's an important priority, protect our minors on line but also make sure that everybody is having the tools to operate in digital world, and this is something I think also in the global scale, we have to work more together to make sure that all of the citizens all over the world, that they have also the digital skills that they have also the possibility of, of course, the benefit of the technologies and digital services that nobody shouldn't be left behind.
>> THOMAS DAVIN: Thank you so much, so indeed an alignment within the notion of DPGs, there is a value based system which was at the birth of Internet and governance, and we are in the right space to discuss that. This is really the foundation of how the Internet was created was around us sharing our skills, sharing of knowledge, but it will take the next generations the ability to human capital those skills so AI literacy will be critical skill sets in the education sector in the future. I want to thank you for lending us your time, your wisdom, and your, and the vision that your respective institutions offer. I understand there has been a specific request to have a quick moment of photo. So we take the opportunity to have a quick photo together with the two of you. Thank you very much.
thank you so much, you can, of course, decide to stay, but I'm assuming you have a business schedule. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. And we were talking about really the value systems, but also how we build institutions and societies and that's the perfect segue for us to move to another presentation, another Keynote by somebody who really was at the heart of what India has built in terms of its own systems architecture, the value systems and the digital public infrastructure. I'm delighted to welcome and introduce Mr. Nandan Nilekani, co‑er and Chairman of Infosys. Unfortunately, he could not travel but we are delighted to have him here online live with us. Please, the floor is yours.
>> NANDAN NILEKANI: Thank you, Mr. Davin. It's a great honour and privilege to be speaking at the IGF 2025 in Norway. I apologize for not being there personally. The plan of public good is very important. In India we have over the last 15 years, essentially led a social and digital confirmation of the entire country, and it's all founded on digital public goods and digital public infrastructure.
For example, identity was a very important requirement in India because many people did not have a birth certificate or any proof of their existence, and India built a system called Aadhaar, which is the world's largest digital ID program with about 1.3 to 1.4 billion people on it, used 80 million times a day today. It has open architecture for everyone to use, and it's something which was done by the Government as a public utility for everyone to use.
Using that and using the KYC of the system the Government was able to enable financial inclusion and Prime Minister liked the program to give everyone a bank account using the KYC which allows you to open the account in one minute and 73 million got bank accounts open. The same other KYC was used for the mobile network which allowed more than a million mobile connections to be done.
So within the span to seven to eight years, a billion people had the digital ID. More than 73 million people had a bank account, and a billion people had a mobile phone. And then using the ID and the bank account, India built the world's largest cash transfer system which enabled to put money electronically into people's bank accounts in real time without any loss or fraud.
And this has been a huge boon in addressing social benefits, Social Security, creating a safety net for the vulnerable, and in times of crisis like COVID, when more than 100 million people got emergency funding, when they had, when they could not work and so on.
So we did that, and on top of that was build a payment system called UPI which is now the world's largest digital payment system. It does about 18 billion trance actions a month or R over 400 billion users, over 2 million merchants where you can make payment and all of the payments have no transaction fee so you can have a lady selling vegetables and she can sell vegetables for 10 rupees and she will receive 10 rupees. This has very popularized the whole payment system.
There is also a way of enabling people to use their own data. We think that data empowerment is very important where people can use their own data to get access to credit and so on. So this lady selling vegetables uses UPI payments, and then there is a track of payment details which she can go to a lender and get credit. This has been enabled by using the thinking of digital public infrastructure and using digital public goods, using open source components, making it low cost, frugal, high volume, low value, and very inclusive.
So this is the way we think that DPGs should be used globally, and we think this is more than just technology. It's about creating an inclusive society where everybody can participate and advance their lives and meet their aspirations. It's about creating an opportunity economy which allows everyone to meet air aspirations and improve their lives. So this is something we think that it's very, very important for us, and India has shown the way.
But now going forward, there is a major initiative globally to take the DPI and DPG thinking globally and many, many bodies have been set up the DPG alliance is one example, we have codeveloped which is a set of philanthropists who are supporting DPG. We have organisations like Norad and others and today many, many of the building blocks are being used globally. MOSIP, which is an ID system which was built as open source ID system has been used in 18 countries, Government to person payment system in open source has been used in multiple countries, Sunbird is an open source education stack being used in multiple countries and so on so forth.
So more and more of the building blocks of digital public goods are being made available. Minister Tung mentioned about a DHIS2 which is an important piece of digital public goods from Norway.
So I think DPG now is becoming a global phenomenon, and the goal is to take DPGs to 50 countries in five years and we already have about 30 countries using one or more of the DPG products that are there, and we think this is absolutely critical, because if we are going to modernize our societies, the only way to do that in a frugal way with all of the budget constraints that countries have is to use a DPG approach to build open models, make them available to the world, create building blocks, and then make sure that societies can mix and match those building blocks to create interoperability.
And the same philosophy can be applied to AI. If you want AI to be really useful and universal, we have to build open source AI building blocks. We are, in India, we are working on two or three of them. One is India language. India has 22 official languages and hundreds of other languages and how to create a way to translate and use language as a way of communicating with the computer so that a person can speak in Hindi to the computer and so on. So language is one area. Education is another area where open source AI is being created so people with learn how to read and write and so on, and do arithmetic and so on.
And then agriculture which is a huge need for millions of farmers around the world. AI is being applied to provide them the latest information that they want. So I think AI will be, but to build on AI you have to have DPG first.
So I think the right any is countries have to have a strategy of having D PGs built on the philosophy of low cost, interoperable, open source, plug and play, stack orientation we talked about, and then out of that we can produce the AI modules which run on top of that.
And all of this, by the way, is fully endorsing privacy, security, and all of the other requirements that we need to have because inclusion is very important. So we make sure that nobody is denied, nobody is left out. Everybody has a path to join society, and that's very, very important in many countries around the world where you need to make it inclusive and allow everyone to participate.
So I think this is very important idea. I'm delighted to be here. I also want to record Norway's enormous contribution to the whole idea of DPI and DPG, the Norwegian Government has always been very supportive of these ideas, Minister Tung talked about it. Norway is also the home of the DPG alliance, when is authoring on this program. Norad which is the agency of Norway is supportive of D PGs and DPI and Norway has produced DPI and DHI too, which is the most popular open source health platform in the world.
So I think I'm delighted that this particular event is in Norway and we do hope that all of us together can take the DPI, DPG story forward and meet our mission of having at least 50 countries in the world using DPI and DPG to make a difference to billions of people in their respective country and bring about social change, bring about Sustainable Development Goals, and bring about technology for good so that we make society better with DPI, DPG and with AI. So again, thank you much for the opportunity and I wish the event all the best.
>> THOMAS DAVIN: Thank you very much for this powerful Keynote. Mr. Nandan Nilekani has been at the heart of the incredible leadership offered by India on digital public infrastructure, and you have heard from him much better than I could ever tell the story of how impactful that is in billions of lives, not just in India, but around the world. I don't know about you, but I have never opened a bank account in a minute, but maybe more importantly when we think of digital identity for children from a UNICEF lens it means we understand where children are. It means we understand whether they need to be vaccinated, whether they are getting to school, dropping out of school, whether they have issues of mental health, et cetera. There are so many verifications to this public infrastructure and what they offer to the world.
We'll hear from many other world leaders on the specific issues of what that means, what that could mean and how we build together and maybe also around the notion of having 50 countries in five years becoming global champion of DPG by default. You will be led by my co‑moderator, Liv, let me invite you to take over for me, warm welcome, Liv.
(Applause).
>> LIV MARTE NORDHAUG: Thank you, Thomas for excellent co‑moderation. I'm very pleased to be co‑moderating the next session which will be a panel. And can I start by please inviting on stage Dr. Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications, innovation, and digital economy, Nigeria. Can I please invite Takuo Imagawa Vice Minister for international affairs, Japan.
Can I please invite Ms. Luanna Roncaratti, Brazil, and last but not least, Mr. Amandeep Gill, Under Secretary‑General and Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies, United Nations.
(Applause).
So we are indeed going to continue on the same topic. It's a pleasure to have this geographical diversity, and to be able to start maybe by hearing from you, Minister Bosun Tijani. I know that digital cooperation is a top priority for Nigeria, and your country is doing a great deal to help advance it, including through your participation in the campaign that Mr. Nandan Nilekani mentioned, the 15Five campaign Aims to accelerate adoption of safe, inclusive, and interoperable digital public infrastructure. From your perspective, what role can the use of digital public goods play in supporting this kind of cooperation, both within Nigeria but also across borders.
>> BOSUN TIJANI: Good afternoon, everyone. Permit me to start by framing my perspective and through the work we do what we consider a DPG to be. For me I will start by saying if you take digital public infrastructure itself as a set of principles or framework, you can look at DPG as the tool or set of tools that form what you may consider social infrastructure. And that this set of social infrastructure is actually how we offer modular, open, interoperable foundation for innovation to drive the public sector. I think it's important to take that framing into consideration. It's extremely important for those who work in the public sector. When you look at countries all over the world, you see massive trust deficit where citizens are asking questions to their Government. A young person who wants to go to university is seeking support and they want the journey to be simple. A young couple has given birth to a child. They want to register their kid seamlessly. The example given of India where vulnerable people expect support from their Government. They want Government to be able to support them through these critical events which if you go to Finland, they will call life event.
And this is what we are saying that Government is struggling to be able to meet these demands, but the citizens are demanding, and that's create a unique gap. We have seen historically technology can support Government to provide these services much more faster, better, seamlessly and cheaper. What we have seen with E‑government is the creation of so many silos in Government and trying to spend on technology, and I think this is the principle and the beauty of DPI that are always like for us to take into consideration when we are having this conversation.
DPI is not just another set of E‑government thinking. DPI is how we get better with our spending on technology. And what it does is there are certain principles we are expected to take into consideration, and if we are not taking them into consideration, then it's not DPI, and we are missing the opportunity. That's where DPG comes to play. I think we focus when we talk about DPG on the open source element. We forget through DPG how we are able to stick to the demands and the way we build, the trust that is required of digital technology solutions, because these are critical solutions. True DPG that we can reuse, that the silos we are trying to move away from, that we actually move away from them, because if we don't, you end up seeing DPI solutions that are repeating the same silos we have been preaching against.
But DPI ensures that we take into consideration all of these key principles. So for me, I believe that at scale DPG is how we enshrine the DPI principles of Government is how we meet demands of stow site and in the case of Africa where the focus is on preaching the fact that we are single market, are over 1.2 billion people across the continent, we are not a single market. You see young people building startups and technology companies that they are open to scale across the continent. You see Government trying to integrate services. DPG principles is how we ensure that solutions meet the requirement, it's how we skill, it's how we use resources effectively, and it's how we ensure that the trust deficit that exists in society, that we can start to bridge that gap.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for the comments and I appreciate what you said about open source is an important part, but there are other aspects including the reusability, the trust, but, of course, the transparency then allows for some of that trust.
>> BOSUN TIJANI: Absolutely.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for the observations, and I love the silo perspectives, because that's what we want to avoid. Can I go to you, now, Vice Minister Takuo Imagawa. Can I ask you to share some of Japan's priorities when it comes to advancing safe and inclusive digital public infrastructure and how can we promote digital cooperation globally.
>> TAKUO IMAGAWA: Thank you, Chair. It's a great honour for me to express any sincere appreciation to the government of Norway, IGF Secretariat and.
I like the information technologies. 2.6 billion people around the world remain still unconnected to the Internet and many students are unable to fully reap the benefits of digital technologies. To bridge the divide accelerating international collaboration in the digital domain is essential. By working in conjunction with DPGs, DPI is expected to contribute to serving a wide range of social challenges ensuring that DPI is developed and utilized in the inclusive and secure manner is essential to establish a solid foundation for global digital cooperation.
Particularly digital Government services especially those built on inclusive and secure DPI can be powerful tools for advancing digital transformation. In Japan, more than 98 million people have adopted digital ID card, a milestone that reflects strong trust in digital governance. This is linked to the EKYC platform enabling secure and seamless identification for a wide range of services. The agency is now working to integrate both driver's licenses and health insurance cards into the single ID card. The integration will unlock new capabilities such as connecting individuals to their medical and prescription histories, making public services more user friendly and responsive to real needs. So maximize the impact of this transformation, the Government is also advancing partnerships with the Private Sector. By working together we can enhance the value of these services and accelerate progress towards a smarter, more connected society.
As we have advanced DPI, open source technology plays a critical role. It enables data to be shared securely and used effectively across sectors, fostering transparency, innovation and efficiency. Japan brings valuable experience to the space. Development agency JICA developed expertise in open change and is applying this knowledge. JICA is showing introduction. DPGs in developing countries. This includes assistant in establishing digital ID systems, E‑government platforms and mobile services contributing to solutions in areas such as education, healthcare, climate change, and disaster resilience.
Furthermore, under the scheme of building DPGs, JICA is working in partnership with external stakeholders to develop digital transformation models. These models aim to enhance social infrastructure by developing technologies such as AI, IoT and Cloud Computing. From the perspective of digital global corporation, I believe that ensuring follow up on this compact is essential to turning its vision into meaningful action. It demands active collaboration across all sectors, industry, Academia, civil society, and tech community.
This kind of inclusive multistakeholder engagement is indispensable to promoting DPI and DPGs as well. You must not forget that international cooperation in the digital sphere has long been driven by the collective efforts of multistakeholders. Moving forward, we should build on existing platforms, including those outside the UN system, and the valuable work of experts while avoiding unnecessary duplication. The IGF in which we are participating is a platform where diverse stakeholders come together, active discussions are already taking place and the IGF stands as a symbol of the value of the multistakeholder cooperation. It is highly effective space for re‑evaluating the follow‑up for the GDC.
As for this follow‑up and its relationship with existing initiatives such as WSIS and IGF, I understand that more specific discussions on this issue will take place in the future. Japan's basic position is to make full use of these existing forums and we are committed to actively contributing to those discussions. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much vis Minister Takuo Imagawa, and I really appreciate, yes, a round of applause.
(Applause).
I appreciate the comments you made about what you are doing both domestically and international development corporation, the digital public alliance we have a very close relationship on climate action. That brings me to the next panelist here, Deputy Secretary Luanna Roncaratti, Brazil is preparing to coast COP 30 in November and is working very hard to ensure that countries continue to fight against global warming despite the funding cuts that we are seeing and the geopolitical changes affecting this agenda.
So can you share some perspectives on what role you see digital public goods playing in that effort to keep momentum high on climate action?
>> LUANNA RONCARATTI: Well, thank you, Liv, for the question, and I would like to say that I am very honored to join this panel, and I'm very glad to be here, and I would like to complement the Government of Norway for this amazing event.
And answering the question while reducing tropical deforestation is one of the main priorities of Brazilian Government. We reckon that digital technologies are powerful tools to tackle climate and environmental issues and to promote effective public policies which improve people's lives. However, managing territorial and environmental policies without adequate information is like putting together a puzzle in the dark. We know that all of the pieces are there, but without seeing how they actually connect.
The rural environmental registry, CAR, is like a flashlight that we light to review and connect the rural mosaic in Brazil. Rural properties, their owners, areas of non‑existent or preserved vegetation, and based on this vision, we can carry out and improve public policies to meet environmental preservation commitments.
CAR has 8 million registered properties and 10 million citizens using the system. The area registered in CAR translates to 500 square kilometers, India and green land combined. Farmers have registered their water courses, mountains and areas which have been converted or that are covered with forests. All of this information builds robust database for environmental and economic planning, monitoring and combating deforestation in Brazil.
CAR has become a strategic tool for combating deforestation and promoting environmental recovery as well as for ensuring access to fundamental rights to traditional people and communities.
Soon it will be an instrument for implementing carbon credit policies too. In strengthening CAR and advancing the environmental regulation of rural properties a common objectives of the Brazil federal and state Governments. To meet these objectives, the Ministry of Management and innovation in public services has carried out important action in recent years such as improvements in the infrastructure of the system that supports CAR, provision of data interoperability mechanisms and cooperation actions to increase competencies of public managers and analysis for environmental regulation of properties.
The federal Government is working to make CAR available as a digital public good to share with the world a solution that allows the construction of a robust and complete environmental database in all of the countries.
In this context, digital public goods play a relevant role in delivering reusable and accessful data and technologies that can be adapted locally to accelerate sustainable solutions. Another point worth highlighting is the federal digital Government strategy which seeks to increase efficiency and improve digital governance. It has principles and initiatives that align with the concepts of digital public good and digital public infrastructure. We believe that this sharing and technological use flake the global journey of environmental preservation more effective and strengthen collective capacity to understand and protect ecosystems.
Brazil's experience shows digital public goods can be a power tool for reducing inequality, promoting environmental sustainability, and improving you are citizens' lives. Thank you.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Before we prolong that applause, I want to pull out something that was just said, and that is that CAR has been available as a digital public good, which is a wonderful commitment by the Government of Brazil to share deforestation or technology that can be used for many purposes including, and if I again, the topic of deforestation. So that is a terrific contribution and thank you for that. Let's have a round of applause for that.
(Applause).
Under Secretary‑General let's turn to you, you have been working a lot on the framework. Can you share a little bit more, I'm sure you have been working on many framework but there is one in particular around the adoption of the universal safe guards framework. Can you share how the UN is promoting and driving this around the world?
>> AMANDEEP GILL: Thank you very much, Liv. We have been looking at the adoption of this public infrastructure, digital public goods around the world and it's useful to remember that the concept itself came out of the work of the High‑Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, Minister Nikolai Astrup was a member there, we shared a common DNA in the work I do at the Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies and the work you leave at the DPG. I want to remember and celebrate that.
The framework that you mentioned, that flows from a fundamental understanding that we have of the DPI, DPG experience around the world, whether you take pigs in Brazil, $4 billion investment that in a single year led to savings of 5.7 builds. Or Estonia example, 2% of GDP saving in terms of efficiency, documentation, processes.
What drives adoption and impact is trust in those systems. So if we don't have safeguards, then we don't have the trust and if we don't have trust, we don't have adoption, we don't have adoption, there is no impact, so that's the operating equation for us.
And the motivation for the development of the DPI safeguard framework, the universal DPI safeguard framework that we released last year in September, and we are working, for example, the DPGA so the 15Five strategy, and the safeguard adoption goal together.
We have looked at experiences from around the world in DPI development, DPI development, and incorporated best practices of the lessons we have learned into an organic evolving framework because tomorrow's challenges won't be the same as yesterday's challenges as AI integrates into DPIs, we may face new risks, of course, opportunities, but there may be new challenges.
So it's an evolving framework based on best practices, experiences and allows you to users to take on the persona of either a DPI developer or a Government servant or civil society activist to see what needs to be done in a particular context. So it's a helpful tool. It's a practical tool. It's not just a report. And it allows us to anchor human rights perspectives, inclusion per specialists and sustainability perspectives into thinking about DPIs throughout the design, development, adoption, and readaptation cycle of DPIs. So that's the framework.
And going forward, there is an implementation aspect, but there is also a global adoption, mainstreaming aspect, and I see the CEO is in the room so working with them, the Gates Foundation with other partners, the second DPI Summit in Africa later this year in November, South Africa will allow us to kind of gather a community, not only around DPIs in general, but also the specific aspects of DPI safe guards and the, this community's active role will be important as we go forward. Open source is mentioned, Minister mentioned the role that plays, and he was there at the open source speak last week in which we had the DPI day and I see DPGs as the middleware that connects open source to DPIs. As we look at digital sovereignty, digital resilience going forward, all of us would need to think about this approach where you broaden the open source community. You take into directions like data comments where in the traditional open source community has not been active, and then you build the useful DPGs on top whether it's in the environment arena, the health arena, the DHIS tool was mentioned. And then where you can you architect into the DPIs vision, whether it's India, Estonia, Brazil, Japan, and elsewhere.
So we will be looking, we are very exciting about this, looking forward to working with all of the partners on stage and in the room to take this forward.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much Under Secretary‑General, and I like the term that you used for highlighting all of the different countries and parts of the world that are coming together here. And how we are building different bits of a parcel together in a way.
I would like to tap into the audience a bit, but for that, I am going to invite my co‑moderator, Thomas, to come up on stage to do an experiment.
>> THOMAS DAVIN: Thank you. So we are talking about values quite a bit and the value of the open source community, the Git lab and we will try to draw into this and the values of Internet as well and trying to be respectful to the notion of being connected and really building on one another. That is the lens and what we are hoping to do right now.
We are going to try to bring your views, your insights and your sentiment around some of these connections on the DPGs so the panel can then build upon as they close. So we would like to do that. We are going to always the technology which is called Mentimeter. It means you will need to use your phone and we will use a QR code which should be on the screen. I hope it's this one. It's going to come soon or it's this one. So please use your phone, take a quick photo that should take you to a Mentimeter, Menti.com and we will go through with you, that should be on the screen for those in line we are going to go through three quick questions. We would have wanted to do more, but there is no time.
We will go through a quick question and hear from you. As we anticipate the broadening of the DPGs, the goods as they come into the digital public infrastructures, what service really should we prioritize mentioned by the Minister from Nigeria, this is about really service to the people in their life moments, what do we prioritize? What should we prioritize as development and as we share with one another? So I can see you've been fast. This is you can see live. They are going to give a few seconds and in terms of services you have financial inclusion, healthcare delivery, climate action, agriculture, education, local entrepreneurship and communication and social media. So healthcare delivery and education seem to be ‑‑ financial inclusion, healthcare delivery that speaks to what the Minister from Nigeria is mentioning is those key moments how you also have financial inclusion, the story that India was really telling us. Agriculture is also there, and climate action really resonates with a lot of us.
Let's give it another ten seconds. And maybe asking panelists to have a quick look because we are going to come back to you all after that to hear also from you whether those resonate with you or whether you are feeling maybe we are missing even a category here that you feel should have been there.
All right. Should we close this round and go to question number two, which is actually an open question. When you think of digital public good, what are you most excited? What do you think is the most inspiring part that digital public good really should revolve around. You can use any word or expression, but you should only have one entry in principle. Though I understand some are always trying to game the game and have several entries. Let's see whether some of you may do that. So collaboration very much at the heart of that. It's a deep value, again, when we are in the open source community, the sense of collaboration, of building on one another, of using what others have built to move forward and further, and it has been so powerfully told as a story both by the Keynote speakers, by Minister Tung and by all panelists that really is that strong sense of value setting around the collaboration as the heart of this notion and this concept.
Public interest, equality, interoperability, inclusion as Amandeep, the Under Secretary‑General was building the sense of inclusion will be crucial to the digital public infrastructure, transparency to build trust, and back to trust and public interest. It has to resonate really with individuals and people's life‑defining moments. What do we see that maybe we haven't talked about? Fairness, a key point, accessibility.
Thank you so much. Let's close this one and bring to the third question what do you believe is, and, of course, I should have said panelists are welcome to vote as well. Maybe I said it too late. What do you believe is needed most to unlock the impact potential of digital public goods? What do you feel is the most important international collaboration mechanism? So the structures we mentioned on the Global Digital Compact, for instance, the framework that Amandeep mentioned, commercial investments, open source first policies and procurement practices. Some of that is behind the 15Five campaign by the digital public goods alliance., applying safe guards and inclusion implementation. Grant and social impact funding, the notion that there should be financing behind this, local vendor capacity, Government capacity, whole of Government digital approaches, Estonia being one case in mind. There may be others.
Government capacity and technical expertise, we have heard a quite a lot of examples in Brazil, in Japan, in Nigeria but in Norway, Estonia is maybe one of the most known but NDI is one of the largest developers and it looks like the numbers are only slowly moving. So we will give it another three seconds and with that back to you, Liv and the panel. Thank you so much.
(Applause).
>> LIV MARTE NORDHAUG: Thank you, Thomas. Thank you for filling this out. We are going to use this. It's a unique opportunity for us to hear not only from those that are with us in person, but also from everyone online. And this is shaping the way we are working at the digital public goods alliance moving forward.
I wanted, before I invite reflections from the panelists I wanted to pick up on the word cloud. I love, and I was almost about to steel Minister Bosun Tijani's glasses, but I love that collaboration was the word that stood out the most. Again, going back to your point, Minister, that digital public goods, like the open source element is important, but it's more everything around it, and one of the most important aspects is the collaboration, the trust, the transparency, the opportunity to build on something that someone else has built, but also to share something that others can build on.
And there is something that is uniquely needed here more than ever, and where I think there is a very, very powerful momentum now to really leverage the collaboration potential. And I'm really glad to see that in the word cloud, and that that's what stands out the most.
But what did you think, Minister?
>> BOSUN TIJANI: You picked on what I thought was increasing about what it was in the word cloud as well. The word collaboration at the middle is truly what we can consider to be the reason why we have success, for example, of DPG in Nigeria. This is one that people don't talk about often enough, maybe because it's not necessarily open source, and it's the Nigerian interbank settlement system. I think many people don't talk about this. It's a fantastic success story that is not only transformed financial inclusion in Nigeria, but has led to economic benefit as well.
If you talk to folks within the technology ecosystem in Africa, they will tell you Nigeria has the highest number of unicorns and all of these unicorns are FinTech. And the reason we have them is because we have the interbank settlement system. So they are able to build on that innovation. We came about the interbank settlement system because of collaboration. It came to being when Government decided to participate and collaborate with the biggest banks in the country.
So all of the banks came together and said we need a system that will allow us to speak to ourselves which I why today Nigeria has banking services that are way faster and efficient than, say, the U.S. or some European countries. It's why today if I need to pay you money in Nigeria, I can transfer money to your bank account and you are rest assured that in one second you are going to see the money in your bank account. That's led to innovation that we have seen across the board, and the lesson we need to learn when I talk about DPI in Nigeria, I allude to the fact that if we are able to repeat what we've done in the Financial Services space, where everyone comes together, we build our data exchange system like we have in the interbank settlement system. Once we make interoperability the focus, I think we start to see similar growth and innovation in healthcare, for instance, where we have tremendous needs. If we can get stakeholders within that sector to partner with Government and build systems that speak to one another, I think we will get to a point where we are solving health issues faster. And not only solving the issue faster, we are going to enable innovation, drive more investment from the Private Sector and see nor unicorns in the healthcare space, it's the same for education and agriculture. What is always missing in how we use technology to pause positive change in the key sectors is the collaboration. We have seen the capacity and understanding of Government to be able to enable it.
Which is why the third point is important. The IS1 was Government capacity towards the last one, you look at the graph, the question I asked the audience, I think it is extremely important, and, of course, for me this is the true example of how we can drive DPG for good in societies across the world.
>> MODERATOR: If there are any open source components that come out of your work, we welcome.
>> BOSUN TIJANI: Our interbank settlement system should become open source because it's one that works well and can benefit so many other countries as well.
>> MODERATOR: We will be in touch. Thank you. Vice Minister, Takuo Imagawa, what did you think when you saw the results.
>> TAKUO IMAGAWA: I was inspired by the outcomes from the audience, and we care much about, like, trust, inclusion, and inclusion and collaboration, and all of those things and we are promoting international collaboration in terms of DPI and DPG.
For example, yes, sharing best practices with the other countries and we often study a lot from our partners. So this kind of collaboration is very important, I think. So I was very much inspired by the response. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. And just to pick up on, because JICA and the work that is happening in the international digital cooperation, JICA is leading on the digital public infrastructure layers or maybe the one that is still evolving which is on secure data exchange. JICA has done impressive work so it's something that is contributing to the digital public infrastructure agenda. Takuo Imagawa Takuo Imagawa thank you, and we are, of course, assisting JICA's promotion DPG to different countries and I would like to continue this kind of effort with JICA together, yes.
>> MODERATOR: Under Secretary‑General, Gill, what were your reflections and what would you have answered?
>> AMANDEEP GILL: I think cooperation, collaboration is a no‑brainer. In fact, the term digital cooperation is our guiding mantra and it's not only digital cooperation across boundaries, across countries, but also across stakeholder categories, Governments, businesses, tech communities, civil society and Academia.
And in terms of the use cases that were reflected on by the audience, there is a pattern. There is a common element which is what's already working, so you see some of these successful examples on financial inclusion, health, education, the Sunbird platform, so that is partly reflected, but also our understanding of where the gaps are in our analog world. We have a huge last mile gap in healthcare delivery in diagnostics equity, education, again, there is a huge gap in terms of literacy skills, retention of children as you go up the years, and also what's needed for the future.
So the audience is reflecting our hope that Digital and Emerging Technologies would be increasingly applied in those areas where the gaps are, but this is not going to happen automatically. You need investments in public interest technology, in talent, in data sets, in shareable open use cases to the DPGA, for example, and in public sector capacity, Government capacity to strategize to come up with the right policies to allow those innovation ecosystems to flourish to address those gaps.
And I would say one more thing on these opportunities, that there are some areas where we have not explored the potential. For instance, intraregional trade. The Minister knows we had this conversation last week in New York on the opportunity in Africa where interregional trade is among African countries lower than their trade European countries so that's an opportunity for the African economy to grow and DPGs that connect business together, that allow entrepreneurs to get to scale with their innovations, that I could be critical drivers of economic growth and employment.
And then lastly, I think, these approaches are critical for the AI future. If we do not have successful DPIs through which data flows and data can come together in a concentrated form in key areas like health, education, et cetera, then local innovators cannot build AI models on top. So they need access to those high quality context specific data sets which DPIs can facilitate. I can foresee over the next two to three years our work is obviously looking at the strengths and catalyzing some thinking and some action around those, but I can see more and more stakeholders paying attention to these additional opportunities coming from DPIs and DPGs.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Under Secretary‑General. Deputy Secretariat in our first question we asked where there is most digital impact and the first was financial inclusion, another was climate action, and as part of Brazil's G20 presidency last year, Brazil was really highlighting and bringing global awareness around potential for connecting the digital public infrastructure agenda like building out digital identity and payment systems to climate action.
Can you share some examples of how Brazil is working to bridge these two agendas?
>> LUANNA RONCARATTI: Yes. Well, in Brazilian Government we have sought a deep reflection on this agenda and aimed at innovative solutions to make a society equal and more sustainable. We have been working with the concept of digital public infrastructure and digital public goods to advance the structure and cross cutting solutions that help us to deal with these challenges. A striking example of DPI in Brazil is the national identity card, also the things that that were mentioned you about I would like to stress the national identity card here. It provided each citizen a unique civil identification number as a gateway to access public policies in general. This initiative also contributes to the reduction of transaction costs for individuals, companies, and Governments across the country.
Another pivotal initiative is the Gov platform which has already 170 million digital accounts, which covers 80% of our population, and offers access to more than 4,000 public services on a single portal.
It provides digital identity which is connected to the new identify, to the new national identify card, and a digital signature without cost for users in Brazil. Our data and personal information are protected by this process as well. And another example is that in 2024 the Brazilian digital public infrastructure proved to be indispensable also to respond to an emergency situation. In May 2024 the state in the south of Brazil faced the greatest flood in Brazil history. The proportions of this disaster surpassed that of Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans and the United States.
The floods affected more than 2 million people who were able to apply for the reconstruction aid using their digital identity available through GOV BR accounts. The crossing of different databases was essential for the benefit to reach those who needed it rapidly, about but those who already had DCIN, the new identity were able to recover the identity in a few hours and access the benefit even faster.
This example along with CAR and others that we have mentioned here, such as Bics, the income payment system to that digital transition must be inserted about the discussion of development, inclusion and sustainability.
We have no doubt that the future is already digital, but we do believe it needs to be green and inclusive too.
Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Let's have a round of applause for the panel.
I'll let you leave because we are going to do one other ‑‑ thank you so much.
As you have heard today, digital public goods are essential to global digital cooperation and for attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals. And we, therefore, need to create an enabling environment for these technologies to be developed and shared in the first place. And for their maintenance and evolution over time.
Procurement and grant financing processes play huge role in ensuring financial sustainability, and in the digital public goods alliance we are, therefore, very excited about the growing trend for Governments and organisations to have open source first policies for what they buy and what they fund.
We want to help grow this momentum by ensuring that there is a better understanding of which policies already exist and are being used, and I would, therefore, like to take the opportunity here in the end to introduce an open source policy survey that we are conducting because if you remember when we asked the question to the audience about what is most needed to help advance digital public goods, the first answer was Government capacity building. The second ranking answer that came out was open source first policies.
So, therefore, we have the digital public goods alliance has in coordination with 24 partners launched a global open source policies and practices survey to map the current use of open source first approaches across Governments and other relevant organisations, for instance, UN entities, international financing institutions and regional entities.
The surveys were open to anyone working in this who can speak to the state of open source adoption even when policies don't currently exist. So, therefore we would love to invite you to help us build a more complete picture of the global open source policy landscape by taking or also sharing this survey today. So please take some time to scan the QR code, to pass it on. It's a rather, it's a comprehensive service. It takes some time to fill it out, but this is findings that, again, will be used to advance the work that we are doing at the digital public goods alliance.
So please take the effort if you are working in a relevant field.
And as we are doing that, and as you are getting that QR code logged, shared, you don't have to fill it out right on the spot, I would like to invite Thomas to come up on stage. So I would like to thank everyone who has joined us here today, the speakers, the audience, both in person, everyone who has joined us remotely, and the Government of Norway as the host and the Internet Governance Forum for being here with us today. Thank you so much.
>> THOMAS DAVIN: Thank you.
(Applause).
