USAID envisions a world where open, inclusive, secure, and rights-respecting digital ecosystems enable people everywhere to thrive.
In today’s digitally connected world, there is a growing recognition that open, inclusive, secure, and rights-respecting digital ecosystems*—and the life-enhancing and lifesaving services they enable— are fundamental components of sustainable development and humanitarian response. Cutting across every sector, geography, and demographic, digital technologies and cybersecurity are a fundamental part of the development journeys of our partner countries and are increasingly crucial to deepening development cooperation, optimizing humanitarian action, and understanding and reacting to conflicts and crises. The digital landscape has shifted significantly in the last ten years as internet usage in low- and middle-income countries has roughly doubled.1 Internet platform companies now dominate the technology sector; devices have become smarter, smaller, and more ubiquitous; person-level data are being collected at unprecedented scale; and artificial intelligence (AI)2 is reshaping the way people work, access information, and engage with one another.
Technological progress poses a dilemma for countries and their development partners: how to capitalize on the benefits of technology use while mitigating the risks. Both the opportunities and potential hazards of digital transformation are heightened today; recent advances, such as in AI, raise the prospect of largescale disruption, and a competition is underway to build the infrastructure,3 write the rules, set the standards, and articulate the norms that will shape development for decades to come. How countries manage this change will determine what benefits digital technology brings and to whom, and whether it fosters a more open, rights-respecting, and inclusive world. An affirmative vision for digital development can tip this balance along three key dimensions.
First, emerging technologies can unlock new opportunities and pave new pathways to economic resilience and civic engagement, while at the same time unleashing new threats, eroding privacy, undermining employment, and aggravating inequality. Connectivity has improved international commerce, education, and health, but the growing use of digital tools has also come with additional risks. More women and girls are online than ever before, but they face a dramatic increase in technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV). Digital data systems have made everyday life more convenient for billions of people, but have brought debates about how to protect privacy, prevent misuse, and responsibly govern data. The use of digital data by governments, businesses, civil-society organizations, media outlets, and even individuals has increased their power and productivity but also put us all at greater risk of malicious cyber activity. Information integrity, which is needed to protect democratic institutions, such as free and fair elections and the rights of civil society and media, is more at risk than ever. Because of these challenges, USAID has an important role to play helping technology be deployed and used in a manner that reflects our values and benefits all people.
Second, digital development can deliver lower costs, increased transparency, and more responsive services through digital government approaches and financial inclusion, but may also exacerbate digital divides. Indeed, billions of people are still excluded in various ways from an increasingly digital world. Many underserved groups have been left behind due to barriers that prevent people from using technology, such as affordability, knowledge and digital skills, safety and security, and access. While digital connectivity is a prerequisite, it alone is not enough to address the digital divide. In low- and middleincome countries, 785 million women do not have access to mobile internet; 60 percent of those women live in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where men are 30 percent more likely to use the internet than women.
Third, the perspectives that will shape digital ecosystems and the larger digital development landscape for this and future generations are actively contested. Some states, including Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), are using their technological capacities and influence within international institutions to create more permissive conditions for repressive and authoritarian practices. Authoritarian regimes around the world are leveraging technology to tighten their grips on power through censorship, information manipulation, mass surveillance, and commercial spyware and statesponsored malicious cyber incidents, which enhance state control over domestic and transnational political and social debate. Techniques of repression and the countries willing to deploy them may evolve in the coming years. As we navigate these developments, our core democratic principles and values will remain central to USAID’s work and programming.
USAID, in coordination with interagency partners, is at the forefront of advancing democratic, secure, interoperable, and open alternatives to the digital authoritarian models that feature state control, censorship, and violations of individual privacy. As a development and humanitarian agency represented in more than 100 countries, USAID contributes important and unique perspectives that help advance U.S. national security, partnering with governments to undertake critical aspects of their digital transformations. USAID’s programmatic and policy leadership and convening power are an indispensable part of the U.S. government’s efforts to reinforce open, inclusive, secure, and rights-respecting digital ecosystems around the world.
The coming decade promises changes of significant magnitude, as access to the internet continues to broaden and countries undergo “twin transitions,”5 where digital transformation supports sustainability efforts by both leveraging digital technology and data and making digital technology more environmentally sustainable. Digital public infrastructure (public investments in modular, foundational digital services such as digital identification or digital payment systems, on which additional digital services can be layered) has been identified as a proven and powerful approach to sustainable and resilient digital ecosystem design. Advances will be made in AI, extended reality (XR), and quantum computing, and as-yet-unimagined technology areas will reshape digital ecosystems. The children and youth of today — who make up the largest portion of internet users — include the first “digital native” generation, and their experiences with digital technologies will have huge impacts on future economies and societies, as well as the environment. Given these realities, the Agency must continue to embrace and harness the opportunities that digital technologies present to our partner communities while mitigating the risks that are inherent in digital technology use. We must work to allow everyone access to the benefits of this new digital world. As USAID looks to the next ten years and beyond, this Digital Policy+ will guide our efforts to innovate thoughtfully, enhance responsibility and accountability, generate reliable and usable evidence, and launch dynamic partnerships that support security, human rights, and economic prosperity for people everywhere.
