U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Digital Strategy (2020-2024)

"While digital tools hold immense potential to help people live more free and prosperous lives, they also present significant risks to citizen privacy and data, freedom of the press, and individual expression."

Building on decades of USAID work in digital development, this document outlines the agency's commitment to improve development and humanitarian assistance outcomes through the use of digital technology and to strengthen open, inclusive, and secure digital ecosystems. It sets out a 5-year path to guide USAID staff and partners in creating programming that supports partners to become self-reliant and capable of leading their own development journeys, recognising that fostering self-reliance in the digital age means working with all actors in a local system and building productive linkages that reach beyond national borders. The strategy charts how USAID will do business - including embracing digital technologies by default in certain instances - in a manner that reflects best practice and is evidence based.

The USAID digital strategy was released in the midst the COVID-19 pandemic, when the role of digital technology in keeping people connected - with teachers delivering lessons remotely to homebound classes, healthcare workers diagnosing patients via telemedicine to minimise their risk of exposure, and people worldwide seeking out online information about the pandemic's impact on their lives and livelihoods - came into particularly sharp focus.

However, 4 billion people, nearly half the world's population, do not have access to the internet. Vulnerable or marginalised groups often find themselves excluded because of inadequate infrastructure or a lack of affordable or relevant products, services, and content, or because political, social, environmental, or economic factors inhibit equitable uptake. USAID explains that digital ecosystems, consisting of stakeholders, systems, and the enabling environment, need to empower all people and communities (including the most vulnerable) to use digital technology to access services, engage with others, and pursue economic opportunities in partner countries.

As summarised in table 1 of the document, digital technology presents a range of benefits and risks for which USAID's programmes universally should account. For instance, digital technology has enhanced development outcomes and advanced national self-reliance by:

• Making development more effective and efficient, such as by strengthening government service-delivery systems (e.g., during the 2014-16 Ebola crisis in West Africa, USAID funded a mobile-phone-based system to disseminate information from the Liberian Ministry of Health to frontline health workers);
• Driving economic empowerment, financial inclusion, and trade (e.g., the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) is an online platform that provides real-time prices on agricultural products over SMS (text message), telephone hotlines, a website, and traditional media channels);
• Supporting accountability and transparency in governance, such as by strengthening land-tenure systems (e.g., USAID's Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure (MAST) initiative has combined technology tools with inclusive, community-based methods to document and formalise the use of land and empower youth);
• Creating a platform for innovation and inclusion, such as by creating new opportunities for persons with disabilities; and
• Delivering information and actionable insights, such as by enabling access to data.

However, there are risks that need to be attended to in digital ecosystems, including:

• The persistent digital divide;
• Threats to internet freedom and human rights;
• Hate speech and violent extremism online;
• The influence of online misinformation and disinformation on democratic processes; and
• New risks to privacy and security.

Accounting for these benefits and risks, the digital strategy centres around 2 core, mutually reinforcing objectives:

1. Improve measurable development and humanitarian assistance outcomes through the responsible use of digital technology in USAID's programming; and
2. Strengthen the openness, inclusiveness, and security of country-level digital ecosystems.

These objectives, and USAID's approach to achieving them, support the goals and principles outlined in key United States (US) government policy documents, including the USAID Policy Framework, the Department of State-USAID Joint Strategic Plan, and the U.S. National Cyber, National Security, and Counterterrorism Strategies.

USAID's approach will embody a set of guiding practices:

• Embed U.S. values, civil liberties, and universal human rights.
• Support in-country alignment.
• Collaborate with the private sector.
• Foster the adoption of globally recognised standards.
• Strengthen local systems, institutions, and capacity.
• Promote inclusive digital development.
• Meet communities where they are along the journey to self-reliance.
• Strengthen cybersecurity.
• Protect privacy and use data responsibly.
• Take calculated risks and embrace innovation.

Through its programmatic investments, USAID will work to strengthen the critical components of digital ecosystems that enable sustainable growth in a digital age:

• A sound enabling environment and policy commitment;
• Robust and resilient digital infrastructure;
• Capable digital service providers and workforce; and
• Empowered end-users of digitally enabled services.

In keeping with a systems-oriented approach, the agency will achieve the Strategic Objectives of this Strategy through a set of mutually reinforcing Intermediate Results (IRs) that align with unique stakeholder roles, detailed in the document (see, e.g., Annex I). Sample illustrative targets (2020-2024) include:

• 30 USAID Missions will have implemented at least one activity designed to address one or more gaps in the national digital ecosystems in their countries.
• 50 implementing partners will have consistently demonstrated alignment with the Principles for Digital Development in their programming.
• 75 new Mission-funded programmatic activities will use digital technology to achieve measurable development outcomes.
• A 20% increase in private-sector digital investment will be leveraged in underserved markets.
• 60% of local digital innovators financed and/or supported by USAID will receive follow-on funding from other sources.

In conclusion: "USAID will continue to ensure that technology and digital ecosystems are built and used to enable women and men to live freer, healthier, more prosperous lives. We envision a world that overcomes the chasm between the digitally enriched and an unemployable underclass; where there is a global convergence toward democratic governance and higher living standards; and in which self-reliant countries guarantee democracy, security, dignity, human rights, and justice for their citizens."