UNDP announces initiative to drive sovereign, open-source DPI efforts in Africa

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) says its Africa Regional Bureau and the Digital, AI and Innovation Hub, will this week, launch an initiative that seeks to support African countries in their efforts to build sovereign digital public infrastructure (DPI) that facilitates the delivery of high-value public services.

Labelled the Africa Accelerator for Digital Public Infrastructure (AA4DPI), the initiative will be unveiled at an event during the UN Open Source Week 2026 that opens June 22, alongside a policy paper tiled Digital public infrastructure in Africa: A leapfrog catalyst for inclusive growth and prosperity, according to a media advisory.

The AA4DPI will help countries strengthen their implementation of sovereign, scalable and inclusive DPI through technical expertise, institutional strengthening, policy support and investment facilitation.

The event, Advancing Digital Public Infrastructure for Inclusive Growth in Africa, will be held on Friday June 26, with planned discussions from the UNDP leadership and technical experts to focus on the role of DPI in advancing inclusive growth and regional integration on the continent.

According to the UNDP, the AA4DPI is a necessary tool which comes at a time when many countries around the world are building DPI, but not just for the sake of it. Many of them are exploring ways through which such infrastructure can substantially and concretely contribute to the delivery of public and private sector services across critical areas of the economy.

As DPI projects continue to gain steam worldwide, some developing economies are increasingly rejecting proprietary and black-box solutions, in favour of modular and open-standard systems such as MOSIP for digital ID projects, and OpenG2P for digital payments.

African governments see this approach as a way to bypass the high costs and vendor lock-in which is often associated with traditional commercial DPI contracts which make it possible for them to retain full ownership and control over their digital ecosystems.

Also, open-source DPI is viewed as the only viable path for scalable, sovereign digital development in resource-constrained environments, which allows countries to pool risks and benefits while maintaining local ownership.

Per the UNDP, the objective of the initiative is to accelerate the shift from “fragmented pilots” toward digital sovereignty by promoting the adoption of open-source DPI to make it possible to own, modify, and scale DPI locally. This is more advantageous for countries because not only is the cost of digital transformation reduced by sharing resources and avoiding redundant investments, critical data and systems remain under national control which enhances security and economic resilience.

The UNDP has been a major support of DPI development in the Global South, backing several implementations across cross nations with financial resources and technical expertise.

Article Topics

Africa  |  Africa Accelerator for Digital Public Infrastructure (AA4DPI)  |  digital public infrastructure  |  digital sovereignty  |  open source  |  UNDP