The Google logo. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Fazry Ismail) | World Bank logo. (Photo: Wikipedia) 
A conference room of world leaders, executives and policymakers sink into plush hotel chairs for what’s labeled as yet another “fireside chat”. There’s no fire, of course, and little chatting — just a few panel discussions followed by polite applause.
Someone cues the crowd for “If you love Africa and you know it, clap your hands”. They do. Because who doesn’t love a good slogan, especially one that sounds like it might finally fix everything?
The term of the hour is Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), and it’s being sold as the blueprint for equitable growth, efficient governance, and maybe even the end of queueing at Home Affairs.
Before the Global DPI Summit in Cape Town, the World Bank Group and Google activated their partnership to roll out AI-powered, open source digital systems for ID, payments, and data exchange. This initiative will reach up to 25 countries and 100 million people over five years, according to Abongile Mashele, head of government affairs and public policy at Google South Africa.
“We are here to set the global agenda,” said Mashele. “How do we build gateways that allow every single citizen to participate in the economy and society at large? We at Google believe that DPI is not just a three-letter abbreviation. We believe that DPI is a movement.”
Whether that movement gains real traction in South Africa’s current context is up for debate, but the ambition reflects a growing drive to steer the country toward a more connected and digitally enabled future.
The gospel of DPI
Think of DPI as the digital equivalent of roads, bridges and power lines. The World Bank defines it as “an approach to digitalisation focused on creating foundational digital building blocks designed for public benefit”.
This vision had gained speed through the G20, with India and Brazil championing it as a tool for accountability and inclusion during their presidencies, said Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Solly Malatsi. Now it was South Africa’s turn, as G20 president in 2025, to carry the torch or, more fittingly, the broadband cable.
Read more: Bridging the digital divide with ambitious plan to connect a billion people by 2030
“For our case, it’s truly to make sure that we continue with the momentum, and to make the leap that our country needs to make in this space, but also to make sure that the values that we espouse, particularly about fostering inclusion, particularly about the empowerment of citizens and unleashing activity in the digital economy, is an important aspect of that,” Malatsi said.
The idea goes that India’s $2-billion Aadhaar digital identity system delivered about $50-billion in value, according to Amod Kumar, joint secretary at India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Other developing economies hope to follow suit, but as always, “following suit” depends on whether your “suit” has electricity and a functioning website.
The tech titans
The Google-World Bank alliance aims to expand digital infrastructure in emerging economies. Google provides advanced AI, including the Gemini model supporting over 100 languages, and open source tools. The World Bank brings money, legitimacy and the development machinery to make governments listen.
Their flagship effort, AgriConnect, aims to double the World Bank’s yearly agribusiness investment to $9-billion by 2030, with another $5-billion mobilised from partners. The idea is to turn smallholder farmers into engines of growth through better access to credit, data and markets.
Read more: How harnessing AI could transform SA’s food systems for sustainable growth and reduced waste
Anil Bhansali, Google Cloud’s vice-president of engineering, described the company’s new open-source app, Beckn Onix, as a “catalyst for action”. It reduces the time to build an open digital network from months to under an hour.
“Open networks coupled with AI can be a gamechanger in driving large scale sectoral transformation,” Bhansali said. In Uttar Pradesh, India, this model helped about 30,000 farmers increase profits by up to 15%, according to Bhansali. That’s the promise being exported to Africa, especially South Africa, that could be next.
Read more: How Africa could become the world’s leading agricultural powerhouse and food basket
The Indian model allowed farmers to use their phones in nine different Indian languages to access credit markets and advice based on trusted government data, Bhansali said.
“These search requests are passed by Gemini, our large language model, to identify the intent and bundle the data as needed and pas it on to providers,” he said. “The providers could be the government as well as the private sector. The service providers can respond using standard interoperability protocols, and a transaction can be completed. All this can take place on any app of the provider’s choice.”
Mzansi’s digital makeover
South Africa’s DPI implementation runs through the MyMzansi Digital Transformation Roadmap, a national strategy that promises “inclusive, secure, and people-centred services for all”.
The roadmap outlines a phased plan from 2025 to 2030, focused on building foundational, interoperable digital systems and improving service delivery across four key initiatives.
Read more: Government models 3.5% growth by 2029 as it launches 30 key reforms — here they are
These initiatives include establishing a digital ID with universal biometrics and a secure digital document wallet. This is paired with creating an instant, cost-effective digital digital payment system, including an end-to-end G2P system to streamline government social grant payments.
“When we have foundational DPI, we can do innovation on top of it by startups, by the private sector. But until we don’t have this foundational DPI [of] ID, payment and secure data, we will not be able to push and go to other sectors of DPI. We will be stuck,” said Noureddine Boutayeb, former Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Interior in Morocco.
Read more: SA’s digital IDs — a warning on the promise and peril of digitised green mambas
The Data Exchange Initiative (which will implement the MzansiXchange platform for real time and bulk data access to improve efficiency and evidence-based policy) and the Trusted Digital Channels Initiative, (which includes a zero-rated website and MyMzansi platform for free access to all government information and services) both support the G2P and digital ID system.
While still in the early stages, the roadmap has secured a win by tackling the bureaucratic nightmare of IDs. The Department of Home Affairs is overhauling its system, and upgraded its Online Verification Service in July 2025 for better accuracy.
Read more: Smart IDs at your bank — and soon, from your couch
Literacy and local trust
According to Nonkqubela Jordan-Dyani, Director-General at the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, the real problem is affordability and access. You can’t use digital IDs if you can’t afford a smartphone or data.
She pointed out that local governments — the level “where most of the services are” — often lack basic digital literacy. “These are political appointees,” she said. “They don’t even know what DPI is.”
Pramesh Shah, the World Bank’s global lead for rural livelihoods and agricultural jobs, contended that Africa faces a challenge when it comes to data organisation. “Almost every African country has been investing in data,” he said, “but it’s scattered, unstructured, and it does not get converted to analytics easily.”
Read more: SA must refine its own AI future and secure algorithmic sovereignty
Malatsi also stressed that trust is a “major component of having a credible digital public infrastructure”. To establish and maintain this, he added, the system has “got to deliver, it’s got to be easily accessible and it’s got to reach people at scale”.
It's a sobering irony to imagine South Africa, where essential systems are failing, basing its future on seamless digital platforms. Yet opting out is not an option. Falling behind on digital infrastructure could be a developmental death sentence.
Until then, we’ll keep clapping along. Because loving Africa is easy. It’s the labour-intensive work of establishing reliable infrastructure that takes bandwidth. DM