Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) has rapidly emerged as a preferred approach to advancing inclusive digital development. Recognized by the African Union and elevated through successive G20 presidencies, DPI is increasingly framed as the digital “essentials” of modern societies, and encompasses systems such as digital identity, payments, and data exchange platforms that enable governments to deliver services at scale.
Yet as DPI adoption accelerates, trust has become a defining challenge. Across many contexts, historical mistrust in public institutions, low digital literacy, privacy violations, and exclusionary design practices have limited uptake and, in some cases, caused harm, particularly for marginalized communities. DPI initiatives are often perceived as opaque and top-down, reinforcing concerns about accountability, sovereignty, and the concentration of power in public digital systems.
This session presents Sandboxes for Digital Public Infrastructure Report developed by the Datasphere Initiative. The report examines how sandboxing is emerging as a governance tool to respond to these challenges. The report asks 3 core questions: what are sandboxes for DPI, where are they being used, and why do they matter now? It maps different models and early “pioneer” initiatives that allowed experimentation with data governance, institutional arrangements, and safeguards before DPI and sandboxing became established terms.
This session seeks to share evidence on where and how sandboxing is being applied in DPI development, and stimulate informed discussion on participatory, accountable, and rights-respecting DPI governance.
Participants will gain a clearer understanding of how sandboxes can be used to test data governance choices, surface risks and trade-offs, and shape DPI design before systems scale. It will encourage collaboration around future case studies and co-creation initiatives focused on trusted DPI.
