Circle
Spotlight on DPI
How to advance Digital Public Infrastructure to boost Africa’s economies
Circle: Spotlight on DPI
March 18, 2025
GovTech Campus Deutschland
To advance digital inclusion, the African Union aims for 99.9% of people in Africa to have a digital legal identity by 2030. Implementing digital identity systems at scale requires robust Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), which can connect populations to essential digital services, and consequently drive economic growth on the continent. However, as a relatively new concept, DPI faces implementation challenges, particularly in accessibility and cross-system interoperability.
Our conversation on DPI’s potential for Africa began at the seventh edition of The Africa Roundtable in Nairobi, examining its applications in trade, finance, public administration, and socioeconomic progress. The subsequent Global Perspectives Circle continued this dialogue in Berlin, bringing together German political and business stakeholders alongside African public and private sector representatives to discuss DPI’s importance for the African continent and map out implementation strategies for its core components.
Spotlight on DPI: How to advance Digital Public Infrastructure to boost Africa’s economies
Selected Speakers
Contact Persons
Stephanie Igunbor, s.igunbor@globalperspectives.org
Circle
We believe in proximity building trust. Our most personal format therefore offers the opportunity to deepen the knowledge of our high-ranking guests in a small circle, together with an exchange of experiences, in dialogue.
Related Program
The seventh edition of the Africa Roundtable focused on the importance of digital infrastructure and data sovereignty for the digital revolution on the African continent.
With data emerging as the key driver of future economic power, Africa's digital transformation is critical and urgent. The action recommendations of the seventh conference.
The African continent has the potential to become the global agriculture powerhouse. The action recommendations of the sixth conference.
The sixth edition of the Africa Roundtable focuses on how the African continent can unlock its full potential as an agricultural powerhouse.
The fifth edition of The Africa Roundtable focussed on employability, skills and training and examine the possibilities of equal education and training for Africa's youth.
Strategies for education, skill building and the labor market of tomorrow. The action recommendations of the fifth conference.
We are at a turning point in European-African economic relations. The action recommendations of the fourth conference.
As the side event to the annual Ibrahim Governance Weekend, we aim to identify the opportunities to deepen trade and investment relations as well as leveraging private and institutional funding.
Following the World Climate Conference COP27, we discussed partnership-based solutions for future cooperation between Europe and Africa at the third edition of The Africa Roundtable.
Program Archive
In times of limited resources and geopolitical tension, multilateral institutions can maximize the impact of existing development funding.
Funding cuts are putting health systems across Africa under pressure. Collaboration with Germany and Europe can help strengthen healthcare in the long term.
This interview publication reviews the effects of recent cuts in reproductive health, presents practical options for funding and service delivery, and offers guidance for policymakers and investors.
Africa’s critical minerals are essential to Europe’s future, playing a significant role in the green transition and industrial competitiveness. The Follow-Up to the 9th edition of the Roundtable.
In the ninth edition of the Africa Roundtable, we discussed how Europe and Africa build partnerships that turn Africa's raw material wealth into local value creation.
This paper explores how Africa can add value to its critical minerals, boost local processing, and drive green industrialization while strengthening regional and global supply chains.
We discussed with State Secretary Niels Annen how development policy can be integrated into networked foreign, security, and economic policies.
US tariffs changes are causing new uncertainties in global trade. Together with ONE and Pinelopi K. Goldberg, we discussed how international development policy needs to be realigned.
As traditional trade relations shift, strengthening local value chains, enhancing trade agreements, and mobilizing private capital are key to building more resilient and mutually beneficial economies.