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South Africa Allocates Additional $9 Million to MyMzansi Digital Government Platform
New funding supports DPI development as national digital ID plans advance and central bank explores separate payments credential.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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UNDP and Blockchain for Good Alliance Launch Cybersecurity Programme
As public institutions rely more on digital systems, including blockchain technology, cybersecurity is critical to protecting services, public funds and trust.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Global
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Digital Public Infrastructure Is Supposed To Be Interoperable: Why Does the Standardization End When Something Goes Wrong?
Digital public infrastructure (DPI) is becoming more common in emerging markets, as a growing number of governments are building population-scale digital systems for identity, payments and data exchange. And as DPI increasingly crosses national borders, involving multiple governments, processes and contractors, the need for interoperability in these systems is growing. According to David Porteous at Integral: Governance Solutions, Maria Luciano, Deepti George at Yutadhi, and Sahana Arun Kumar at Amarante Consulting, this growing reach and complexity mean that redress — i.e., citizens’ ability to challenge errors in DPI systems and obtain remedy — should also be interoperable. They share insights from a research project that examined grievance redress mechanisms for 15 DPI systems in Brazil, India, South Africa, Benin and Ethiopia, exploring how they can move toward greater standardization.
- Categories
- Technology
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Reimagining the Digital Architecture of Global Development: How Big Tech Can Bring the Sector into the Modern Age
The global development sector has grown into a sprawling ecosystem, including powerful multilaterals and millions of community-level NGOs worldwide. In the process, as social innovation advisor Rajat Ray explains, it has repeatedly reinvented its tools and techniques to handle the growing scale and depth of its work. But he argues that the reductions in traditional aid, the growing strain of modern operational demands and the emergence of advanced technologies like AI have brought the sector to a defining inflection point. He explores how its legacy tools and processes are falling short, and calls for a complete reimagining of the digital architecture that underpins global development, driven by multilateral leaders and Big Tech.
- Categories
- Technology
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Report: GSMA Warns of Growing AI Divide as Smartphone Costs Rise in Emerging Markets
The report highlights a growing threat to digital inclusion: a sharp increase in the cost of smartphone memory and chipsets, driven by global demand for AI infrastructure and data centres.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Financing AI Transformation in LMICs: What Multilateral Development Banks Must Do Differently
Multilateral development banks have spent the last decade building the foundations of digital economies across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and the broadband networks, digital ID systems and other priorities they've financed are helping to make AI deployments in these markets possible. But as Kunal Walia at Dalberg Advisors explains, this funding often goes toward piloting individual use cases, expanding digital infrastructure or creating an enabling environment, rather than uniting these different components into holistic AI systems that aim to scale. He argues that multilateral development banks must rethink their approach to ensure that the infrastructure they've helped build can actually enable AI transformation.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
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Cyberattack Hits Angola’s Biggest Telecom Hours Before Landmark $329 Million Stock Market Debut
While there is no indication that the cyberattack affected the IPO process or trading infrastructure, the timing places fresh attention on cybersecurity risks facing companies undergoing major market events.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Analysis: The AI Sustainability Paradox
AI is being sold as a tool to solve sustainability’s hardest data problems, from Scope 3 emissions to climate-risk intelligence. But the infrastructure behind that intelligence — data centers, water use, energy demand, chips, grids, and community consent — is becoming its own sustainability test. Drawing on conversations at Trellis Impact 26, Ming Wong explores what AI’s physical footprint means for impact investors, corporate sustainability leaders, and the communities being asked to host the next generation of digital infrastructure.
- Categories
- Energy, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Global
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