Abstract

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)—the interoperable stack of foundational digital rails for identity, payments, data exchange, consent, and trusted services—has emerged as a powerful lever for inclusive development. Yet deployment in emerging economies is uneven, and the digital divide persists along axes of income, gender, geography, language, age, and disability. This chapter proposes a strategic, end-to-end framework for designing, deploying, and governing inclusive DPI. Drawing on lessons from diverse contexts, it synthesizes policy, technical, institutional, and societal levers into a practical roadmap emphasizing inclusion-by-design, safety, accountability, and sustainability. The chapter provides conceptual foundations, a typology of divides, case mini-studies, actionable design principles, governance models, financing options, risk management, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) metrics, and an implementation playbook.