A small business owner applying for finance should be able to present reliable evidence without repeatedly collecting the same documents. A patient referred to another hospital needs the next clinical team to receive the information required to continue care. A household receiving public assistance needs an application process it can complete and a payment it can access.
Digital public infrastructure (DPI) can support these journeys through shared identity, payment, credential and data-exchange capabilities. Institutions can reuse those capabilities across services, with agreed responsibilities and safeguards. CDPI describes DPI as an approach combining open standards and governance, while Co-Develop emphasises reusable foundations that serve several use cases.[1][2]
This section examines the practical question: what becomes easier, safer or more accessible for the person using the service? It brings together published examples and illustrative proposals for Indonesia. The proposals are starting points for discussion and testing; they do not describe confirmed deployments or partnerships.
Explore the use cases
| Page | The problem it explores | Proposed approach | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| UMKM Financing with Verifiable Credentials | A small business has useful financial evidence that another lender cannot easily check. | Present credentials from accepted issuers so a bank can verify evidence and use it in its lending assessment. | Illustrative Indonesia concept |
| Continuity of Care through Data Interoperability | Relevant patient information does not arrive in a usable form when care moves between hospitals. | Use shared health-data standards and authorised exchange, with bounded AI assistance for data harmonisation. | Illustrative Indonesia concept |
Neither example assumes that connecting systems automatically delivers the intended outcome. Each identifies the institutions, decisions and checks needed to make the service work.
How DPI can reduce waiting time
Waiting often happens between institutions. One organisation requests evidence, another holds it, and the applicant becomes responsible for moving it between them. Staff then re-enter information or contact the issuing institution to check it.
Shared infrastructure can shorten particular stages of that process:
| Source of delay | What a shared capability can change | What still requires attention |
|---|---|---|
| Repeated identity checks | Reuse an accepted identity-verification method. | Resolve mismatches and support people who cannot use the digital channel. |
| Documents that are difficult to authenticate | Verify an issuer's credential or query an authorised source. | Check relevance, freshness and whether the issuer is trusted for that claim. |
| Records in incompatible formats | Exchange information using agreed structures and terminology. | Check meaning, completeness and the correct person or business. |
| Transfers limited by operating hours | Use interoperable payment infrastructure. | Confirm account access, payment failures, fees and fraud controls. |
| Unclear responsibility for a case | Record status and assign the next action to an accountable team. | Give users a way to ask for correction or escalation. |
Reducing verification time may shorten a service journey, but a service can still wait for a decision-maker, available funding or an appointment. Report the time saved at the relevant stage and measure the whole journey separately.
What published experience shows
Different countries offer different lessons. These examples concern shared digital foundations or complementary service-delivery reforms. They are not directly comparable evaluations of an identical DPI model.
| Example | Published evidence | Lesson for a use case | Boundary of the evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brazil: Pix | Banco Central do Brasil describes transfers between people, businesses and government entities in a few seconds, at any time.[3] | Interoperable payments can remove a settlement delay across participating providers. | This describes payment capability, not the time needed to approve a benefit or resolve every failed transaction. |
| Togo: NOVISSI | A 2023 study by the Government of Togo and the World Bank reports that the emergency programme was designed from scratch in ten days and used mobile registration and payments.[4] | Existing identification data and payment channels can support rapid mobilisation of assistance. | Ten days is programme-development time. The study also discusses exclusion risks associated with the available identification and mobile channels. |
| Bangladesh: a2i | UNDP's 2015 account describes reduced time, cost and barriers through improved access and simpler service delivery for underserved communities.[5] | Service redesign and accessible local support can matter as much as an online interface. | This is a historical programme account, not a current nationwide waiting-time estimate or proof that DPI alone caused every improvement. |
| Viet Nam: official government app identification | The World Bank describes the 2024 introduction of government-app badging through cooperation with Google.[6] | Helping people recognise official services is one practical security measure. | The account describes a protective intervention; it does not establish a quantified reduction in fraud. |
Together, these examples suggest a useful design direction: make shared functions reliable, simplify the surrounding process and provide a usable route for people who need assistance. The benefit depends on all three working together.
Better public services need accountable institutions
A useful service has a clear owner. That owner explains who can participate, which evidence is accepted and who makes the final decision. It also provides a correction route when the underlying record or service decision is wrong.
For example, a successful identity check does not establish eligibility for assistance. A signed business credential does not establish that a loan is affordable. A technically valid health record does not establish that every clinical detail is complete. Institutions must define how they use verified information and how they handle exceptions.
The UN Universal DPI Safeguards Framework addresses risks to individuals and society across the design and operation of shared systems.[7] For MOSAIC use cases, that means treating accessibility, privacy, redress and institutional responsibility as part of service delivery.
Security practices that support trust
Connecting more systems creates more ways for an error or attack to spread. Shared infrastructure needs explicit access rules and operational security. The World Bank highlights basic cyber hygiene, security requirements from the design stage and clear arrangements with suppliers.[6]
For a proposed use case, specify:
- Access: authenticate participating institutions and staff; grant only the permissions required for their role.
- Data handling: limit collection and sharing to the stated purpose; protect data during transfer and storage.
- Evidence integrity: retain issuer or source information, timestamps and the result of relevant checks.
- Operations: maintain security updates, audit access and practise incident response and recovery.
- User support: make official channels recognisable and provide ways to report suspicious activity, incorrect records or lost access.
These controls need named owners and evidence that they work. An encryption statement or a digital signature covers only part of the service's security.
How to judge impact
Define the baseline before introducing a new capability. Include people who abandon the process, require assistance or experience errors.
| Outcome | Practical measure |
|---|---|
| Less waiting | Median and 90th-percentile time from application or referral to completion; record verification time separately. |
| Less repeated work | Documents requested again, manual entries and follow-up contacts per case. |
| Better access | Completion and abandonment rates, including assisted channels and relevant population groups. |
| Reliable decisions | Incorrect matches, disputed evidence, corrections and time to resolve them. |
| Safer operations | Unauthorised access, confirmed incidents, recovery time and disruption to services. |
| Sustainable delivery | Cost per completed case, staff effort and the number of services reusing a shared capability. |
Where possible, compare the new process with an equivalent existing process and explain differences in the cases being handled. Faster checks, wider access and better decisions are outcomes to test rather than assume.
Developing an initiative
Start with one service journey and a manageable group of institutions. Agree on the evidence or records needed, establish access and trust rules, then test normal cases and exceptions. Expand only when the pilot demonstrates a useful improvement and an affordable operating model.
Future pages can cover social assistance, education, business licensing, climate programmes and cross-border recognition. Each should identify what already exists, what the proposal adds and which results have actually been observed.