Digital Public Goods (DPG) are digital products, in form of software, algorithms, data sets, AI models, standards and even content that are open source and can contribute to the attainment of sustainable development goals. In the article Building Public Goods for the 21st Century, Nicholas Gruen wrote about the concept of digital artifacts, like websites, algorithms or even programming languages are all potential public goods since they are costless to replicate.
Building the Public Goods of the Twenty-First Century - Evonomics
In the economic sense of goods, a DPG is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous. ****A DPG in non-excludable in a sense because it is something that is assumed to be open source, hence no limitation must be done on the use, modification and adoption of the DPG. It should always be assumed as free. At the same time a DPG is also non-rivalrous because, given that it is a digital tool, and there a general assumption that digital products are virtually limitless, save for limitations in hardware or storage, using a DPG won’t hinder other from using the same DPG as well.
The United Nations have embraced the use of DPGs in its various work. It promotes a global effort to encourage countries in both investing in the creation of DPGs and in the reusing of existing DPGs. The following document shows the roadmap of the UN Secretary General for Digital Cooperation on the Promotion of Digital Public Goods (https://www.un.org/techenvoy/sites/www.un.org.techenvoy/files/general/Digital_Public_Goods_Summary_PDF.pdf)
Digital_Public_Goods_Summary_PDF.pdf
To further support the promotion and the call to invest on digital public goods, a workplan has been developed by the UN to ensure that concrete action is done towards the adoption of DPGs. The key activities of the workplan are as follows:
1.1 Holding a series of events to establish a general understanding of the digital public goods definition presented by the UNSG in the Roadmap and the accompanying more operational DPG Standard.
1.2 Working with the Digital Public Goods Alliance and other initiatives including New America Foundation, and GitHub, OSI, IEEE, Linux Foundation, Software Freedom Conservancy, BMGF, Creative Commons and PIJIP at American University, Digital Square, and Digital Impact Alliance Open Source Center, to establish broad endorsement of the Standard
1.3 Producing a short paper, in collaboration with the Digital Public Goods Alliance, on the standard for digital public goods and open source digital solutions
2.1 Development/Expansion of the Alliance’s platform