The health sector stands to benefit enormously from the growth of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) but faces unique challenges in how to leverage these opportunities to the full. The implementation of digital solutions has not always aligned with supporting broad national health system goals, but rather with narrow donor health programme priorities.
Core systems such as those handling patient identity, longitudinal records, and provider registries have often evolved without recognition of foundational DPIs and without regard for the need for coherence across health programmes. National institutions face systemic barriers to enforcing standards, and coordination across health, finance, and technology sectors is often fragmented. Local developer ecosystems remain underutilised and under-incentivised.
Meanwhile, development banks are preparing to respond to country demand for significant DPI investments, making this an urgent moment to articulate the minimum requirements for countries to succeed, including on governance, and technical conditions . Within discussions on sustainably leveraging DPI for health sector transformation, two key, interrelated themes emerge: governance and institutional capacity, and technical architecture and country capability.
This Wilton Park meeting aims to help stakeholders find alignment and a common vision for how to leverage the opportunities of cross-sectoral foundational DPIs and health-specific DPIs to achieve a digital health transformation that countries can sustain with their own institutions, financing, and technical capabilities.
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