We all want roads, but not when they’re riddled with potholes. If a bridge appears likely to collapse, no one wants to cross it. When there’s no onramp, you’ll never access the fast lane.
Taking good care of physical public infrastructure is widely understood as one of the government’s essential responsibilities. It won’t be long before digital public infrastructure (DPI) is looked at the same way as our physical infrastructure.
Much like a solid bridge or a well-maintained road, a CMS is essential to DPI because you need rock-solid stability and reliability to support the services citizens and government employees use. The right platform also avoids costly maintenance issues that can distract from modernization objectives. But first, you need to understand what DPI is and why it’s important.
What is digital public infrastructure?
Though definitions vary among governments, non-profit groups, and private sector organizations, a policy paper from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published late last year positioned DPI as follows:
(DPI refers to) shared digital systems that are secure and interoperable and that can support the inclusive delivery of and access to public and private services across society.
A good example of the concept in action is the 50-in-5 initiative, a multinational initiative that aims to develop and strengthen DPI by 2028 across dozens of countries. Some of the components 50-in-5 is focusing on include digital identity systems, digital payments, and data exchange systems, but the intended outcome is much broader:
By digitizing and modernizing their services with DPI, governments can serve populations’ needs more swiftly and efficiently. There is also a crucial role for public institutions to play to guarantee that DPI is inclusive, foundational, interoperable, and publicly accountable.
Of course, many government agencies have been developing and deploying digital technologies for years in an effort to improve the citizen experience. For example, WordPress VIP aligns with the DPI philosophy by allowing government agencies to create meaningful and valuable interactions that resonate with citizens on an emotional level.
This is important because digital experiences should not be restricted to commerce. Whether paying a utility bill or registering to vote, WordPress VIP makes it happen in a consistent, secure, scalable way that protects citizens’ data.
Why is digital public infrastructure important?
The OECD paper outlines a number of key benefits of taking a DPI approach to government modernization. Beyond creating greater resiliency and scalability, the authors argue that DPI will lead to greater government efficiency, interoperability, and communication across departments and borders.
Research from Deloitte suggests it’s better to think of DPI as a road map rather than a specific set of technologies. If it’s well plotted, it should lead governments towards more manageable costs, economic growth, and trust.
Last October, Bill Gates wrote that well-run DPI is already having an impact in areas that span agriculture, health-care, and a range of government services.
At the State of California, for example, moving to WordPress VIP allowed its Department of Technology to consolidate 200 state departments and more than 70 disparate websites under a unified digital experience.
What are the barriers to digital public infrastructure?
PI is an emerging concept, and while taking root in the United States, Washington, D.C.-based think tank New America has identified a number of roadblocks. These include a “patchwork of solutions, legacy systems, and workarounds that currently fill many of the functional gaps” in America’s government today.
Then there is the question of what DPI deployment might look like in the U.S., New America adds:
One view espouses DPI that is federally managed across all states, possibly with a national-level council defining the priorities for a national DPI stack. Another perspective sees a fragmented rollout—one project, state, or functionality at a time and/or possibly even through competing companies or standards—as more realistic.
The reality is that if the U.S. waits for one national policy, DPI will never happen. That’s why WordPress VIP has focused on combining centralized control with decentralized execution. In practice, that means WordPress lets federal, state, and local governments modernize apps at their own pace while supporting future alignment at a national level where and when it’s deemed appropriate.
One thing DPI agrees on is that it will only deliver on expectations if it is deployed with cybersecurity protection top of mind. This past September, leaders from the United States, Australia, Japan, and India met in Wilmington, Delaware and tried to address this with a set of DPI deployment principals.
DPI, according to principal No. 5, should embed “key privacy enhancing technologies,” while No. 7 says countries deploying DPI “should seek to ensure that these systems are safe, secure, trusted and transparently governed.”
Fortunately, this isn’t something government agencies have to figure out entirely on their own. The United Nations has already launched Universal DPI Safeguards Framework: A Guide to Building Safe and Inclusive DPI for Societies. Its recommendations aim to mitigate risks at both the individual and societal level, and from the moment a DPI project is scoped to when it’s simply being maintained.
The foundation for digital public infrastructure is…
What a lot of the DPI discussion overlooks is the foundation that will allow governments to create the secure, accessible experience citizens want. That foundation is a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress VIP that can comply with key mandates, ensure the highest security, and serve the public better.
While the Deloitte research cited earlier tried to make the case for making customer experience platforms (CXPs) a part of DPI, a CMS is already core to much of how digital government service delivery works today. For example:
- Many digital identification processes happen through a government website, whether it’s accessing income tax information, applying credentials, or verifying them.
- Government websites are where citizens are most likely to start their digital journey when researching public services and details around their eligibility, processes, and information they’ll need to share.
- A CMS is the hub that connects to an array of software solutions, including digital payment systems, because content provides the necessary context to facilitate those sorts of transactions. WordPress VIP, for instance, was built to be open by design and lets government agencies connect to an ecosystem of integrations and plug-ins to additional solutions.
- Unlike a CXP, which may require complex integration and phased deployment, many government agencies understand how a CMS works.
CXPs are also designed more with private sector organizations in mind. Contrast this with a CMS like WordPress VIP which has been optimized for government use cases and contains the built-in security and regulatory compliance features government agencies require.
Throw in the fact a CMS like WordPress VIP is built on the open standards that DPI plans call for and it’s no wonder you see it deployed everywhere from NASA to WhiteHouse.gov.
Yes, developing this kind of infrastructure involves more than just the technology, but you’ve got to start somewhere. As more government agencies consider what they need to operate at their best, it’s time to recognize how a CMS will contribute to DPI success.
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Author
Shane Schick, Founder—360 Magazine
Shane Schick is a longtime technology journalist serving business leaders ranging from CIOs and CMOs to CEOs. His work has appeared in Yahoo Finance, the Globe & Mail and many other publications. Shane is currently the founder of a customer experience design publication called 360 Magazine. He lives in Toronto.
