themes for 2027
Converting DPI Momentum
into Scaled, Sustained Impact
The foremost aim of the 2027 Global DPI Summit is to create space for countries and the ecosystem to share transformative progress achieved through implementing DPI and to align on shared paths to sustain it. In recent years, the effort to scale DPI has coalesced into a movement of countries, funders, technologists, civil society, public interest actors, and users driving an array of global success stories. As the ecosystem enters its next chapter, the aim is to convert that momentum into sustained, scaled impact, through the five themes below. Together, they mark a moment to preserve and strengthen what the DPI community has achieved and to carry it boldly into the future.
01
Showing Impact at Scale
Momentum only converts to lasting impact when adoption reaches whole populations. Adopting DPI requires new pathways to overcome the incentives that encourage siloed systems. This theme will feature country-led case studies from governments and the private sector demonstrating DPI adoption at population scale. It will examine how DPI enables sector-specific innovation by transforming the economics of service delivery and helping countries stand up faster, more cost-efficient digital solutions to core challenges from health to food insecurity. It will also explore how governments and researchers are using quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods to test regional initiatives and pilots for scale up and to measure DPI's impact at population scale. This includes examining who is being reached, who needs more support, and which methods have been most effective at enabling meaningful participation.
02
Building for Everyone
Scaled impact is sustained when everyone can participate and trust the systems they use. Everyone has a role to play in ensuring no one is left behind. This theme will highlight how start-ups, digital public good (DPG) builders, and the private sector create localized capabilities - such as language tools and redress mechanisms - that help communities meaningfully participate in the digital economy. Participants will also align on making safeguards - including those laid out in the Universal DPI Safeguards Framework - tangible to build trust, protect vulnerable users, and encourage safe use. The focus will also include how consumer protection authorities, civil society, and the legal community can help shape DPI from the outset, rather than responding to risks after systems are built.
03
Reusing what Works
Across Sectors & Borders
Reuse is one of the fastest ways to turn momentum into scale. Countries are already reusing and adapting digital solutions across sectors and borders, rather than starting from scratch. Doing so demonstrates the potential to accelerate time-to-delivery and increase cost efficiency. The opportunity now is to unlock more reuse by addressing the barriers that still hinder it. From interoperability, open standards, and sustainable shared assets to local implementation capacity, we’ll explore how to make reuse possible. We’ll share how to make it easier to adapt what works, collaborate on common needs, and build on shared foundations. Across countries, we will highlight cross-ministerial and regional collaboration on governance, institutional coordination, regional policy, and cross-border infrastructure to showcase the potential of joint problem solving as goods, services, and people flow across borders.
04
Shaping an Agentic Future
AI dramatically increases both the value of strong DPI and the consequences of siloed foundations. We will explore how identity, payments, credentials, registries and trusted data exchange can enable countries to deploy AI in ways that create public value and how AI itself may change the economics of building, adapting, and operating DPI. Countries will share emerging applications while confronting the harder questions around how they can retain the ability to create, capture, and govern value locally. We will discuss strategies to shape data governance, develop capacity from technical skills to workforce pipelines, and ensure systems remain accountable in an AI-enabled economy.
05
Reshaping Financing
for the Long Term
Sustained impact of any digital system depends on effective financing models to support that system’s entire lifecycle. Shared systems that DPI provides may reduce total systems costs but also may require new models for financing horizontal components that span ministries. This theme will explore the trade-offs in how countries develop and acquire DPI. It will examine how countries can shift toward sustainable domestic financing and procurement that enable more rapid deployment, how MDB financing can better support reusable components and product-style development over the default ‘waterfall approach’, and where philanthropy and the private sector can be catalytic. We will also consider how governments and MDBs can better budget for the ongoing costs of inclusion and safeguarding and fund public-interest actors essential to a healthy DPI ecosystem that may not have a natural source of commercial or domestic financing.
