Digital technologies are now the backbone of modern societies, underpinning everything from service delivery to financial transactions. Yet in most countries, many of these critical services remain fragmented, duplicative, and designed in silos – tied to individual programs or agencies rather than treated as infrastructure. 

This fragmentation leads to costly inefficiencies, missed opportunities for cross-sector innovation, and barriers to inclusion. These costs are not only technical. They are social, economic, and political. Governments continue to invest in multiple digital systems without capturing economies of scale or the spillovers and externalities digital infrastructure can generate.

This paper:

• defines the infrastructural nature of digital systems
• analyses how digital infrastructure shapes economic dynamics
• proposes a public value measurement framework for digital public infrastructure
• identifies additional factors that influence value creation.

Policy implications

1. Treat essential digital services as infrastructure.
2. Design for value from the start.
3. Expand the role of finance ministries.
4. Build in dynamic measurement beyond efficiency.