Digital Square Global Goods and Digital Public Goods

Digital Square Global Goods and Digital Public Goods

Digital Public Goods (DPGs) are open source software, open data, open artificial intelligence (AI) models, open standards, and open content that adhere to privacy and other applicable laws and best practices, do no harm by design, and help attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). DPGs include all of the SDGs, such as agriculture, finance, climate, etc.

Digital Square Global Goods have a close relationship to DPGs, in that they overlap with many aspects of the DPG Standard. However, the difference stems from the fact that Digital Square Global Goods are focused on SDG 3 (Health and Wellness) and primarily focused on the health domain with a market focus of LMIC settings. Global Goods are also tools with an identified drive towards strengthening the maturity, interoperability, and shelf readiness. DPGs are similar to global goods, with different but overlapping standards.  

All Global Goods can be seen as Digital Public Goods, but not all Digital Public Goods are Global Goods. Digital Square Global Goods can be seen as a collection of DPGs that are focused on health that are impactful, scalable and adaptable to different countries and contexts and have active focuses to become more interoperable, deployable and better serving LMIC settings.

While the majority of Digital Square global goods will meet the standards required for approval as a DPG, there are two reasons why not all DPGs will be Digital Square global goods:  

• Digital Square exclusively evaluates solutions relevant to the health sector whereas DPGs are sector agnostic.  
• Digital Square facilitates a peer review process that assesses maturity and aligns and weighs in on “awarding” the title of Digital Square global good. In contrast, DPGs have no maturity requirement. 

Digital Square closely coordinates with the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) and the technical leads at the WHO Clearinghouse to align the approval processes for Digital Square global goods and DPGs. 

Digital Square global goods are approved by our Peer Review Committee and Investment Review Committee through our Notice process. Learn more here.