The first day of the 2nd G20 Sherpa Meeting began with an all-day focus on the critical role of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in improving development outcomes and India’s vast experience in implementing DPI at scale in the past decade.
The plenary sessions of the G20 Sherpa meeting will commence tomorrow, March 31. V Muraleedharan, the MoS for External Affairs and Parliamentary Affairs, will deliver special remarks at its opening session.
The Side Event was organised by the G20 Secretariat in partnership with NASSCOM, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL).
India’s G20 Sherpa, Amitabh Kant, along with NASSCOM President Debjani Ghosh, inaugurated the DPI Experience Zone in the presence of Sherpas and delegates from G20 members, invited countries and international organisations.
Demonstrating India’s DPI success story, the immersive Digital India Experience zone highlighted key DPIs developed by India for addressing crucial issues such as digital identity, financial inclusion, and equitable access to education and health.
Various population-scale DPIs of India Stack, such as Aadhar, Co-Win, UPI, DigiLocker, BHASHINI and others, were showcased in the experience zone.
The experience zone also saw the presence of private sector enterprises such as Google, Microsoft, PayTM, Fractaboo, AWS and TCS, which showcased the innovation potential of DPI.
The Side Event commenced with an inaugural address by India’s G20 Sherpa, Amitabh Kant, who noted the crucial role of DPI in providing inclusive access to public services effectively and efficiently.
He emphasised the achievements and huge strides India has made in the past few years in the digital domain and highlighted the potential benefit of the adoption of DPIs globally, especially in developing countries and the Least Developed Countries. Sherpa Kant underlined open standards, an open API, and interoperability as the hallmarks of India’s DPI.
With India emerging as a global digital centre, its leadership in building inclusive public technologies has not only empowered the nation but also opened a plethora of related businesses and opportunities. DPI systems have become the critical foundation for enabling the meaningful delivery of public and private services and underpinning the achievement of a range of SDGs, including poverty reduction, financial inclusion, women’s economic empowerment, and climate resilience.
Digital Public Infrastructure is one of the key priorities during India’s G20 Presidency. It is a cross-cutting theme across various working groups, including Digital Economy, Health, Education and Global Partnership for Financial inclusion.