The dismantling of USAID and the retreat of other bilateral donors is a major blow, and we will continue to see the ripple effects in years to come.
However, this isn’t an indictment of open source software technologies and the effects are not limited to NGOs. This is (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime event that no one in the sector could have anticipated, let alone prepared for.
Open Source Is An Option
At Development Gateway, we’ve learned that no single technology or approach will democratize technology or revolutionize the world. The tech-as-a-silver-bullet thinking has faded, as has the goal of open source purity.
Over 25 years of digital development shows that understanding context, building capacity, and fit-for-purpose technology are vital for the success of digital transformation. The technology has to be adaptable to the context, meet the capacity of the institution owning it, and finally, it has to be “good enough.”
Development NGOs are not set up to fill market gaps. Instead, we typically seek to address market failures and serve public needs, not commercial ones. NGOs often focus on problems that are inherently not commercial – big tech doesn’t care about the subtleties of land management in Moldova, or the location of water wells in Kibera.
Ushahidi, for example, has been used in crises when traditional market platforms for mapping couldn’t work fast enough.
Open Source Is Not a Panacea
Encouraging NGOs to grow capacity for commercial thinking will perpetuate the same market failures we seek to resolve.
Anyone who has worked in international development has been part of programs that wrongly assume demand (and subsequent financing) from intended beneficiaries, especially in the digital and data space. Equating need with demand is not a problem with open source software per sea; it is a contextual problem that often leads to failure.
Open source is seen as an inherently sustainable option. This is a misunderstanding of both the value of open source and technology lifecycles.
Open source software will not save failing programs and institutions. Monetizing intellectual property through paid enterprise versions won’t either. Hybrid models may be a solution for some, but these models will not resolve financial or government ownership blockers.
Instead, understanding your organization’s value-add can drive revenue without holding your partners’ budgets hostage for years to come through closed-source models. We must stop conflating open source with free or cheap, or assuming that governments will take over costs upon implementation.
Sustainable Technology Costs Money.
There are different modalities for sustainability, and they all have costs.
- Has the government taken ownership of the system?
- Is there a local vendor now providing maintenance on it?
- Are you providing a support and maintenance contract?
Sustainability is a game of risks; open source and clear licensing protocols are requirements, but do not automatically lead to success. For example, the Kenya EMR example points to a problem with country ownership and data sovereignty, not open source technology.
We have encountered this risk in our own work, where an internationally-applauded system went offline because the government did not adequately write the server costs into the budget for subsequent years.
The Open Way Forward
The turmoil in our sector has caused us to recommit to the real goal of digital transformation, as we recognize the importance of government ownership of digital and data. There is no silver bullet for achieving digital transformation, but there are some fundamental elements.
1. Source Code Survival
Donors and implementing partners (particularly NGOs and social impact companies) must understand licensing models and join initiatives that try to give a baseline of documentation, codes of conduct, and public repositories.
Donors should demand to produce Digital Public Goods, as it provides “customers/beneficiaries/owners” with at least a starting point of ownership of the digital solution. Companies fail all the time – if the source code is transferred or made public, there is still a way forward.
2. Scale is Relative
Scale does not need to reach DHIS2-levels for success. Too often, the technology implementation, rather than its impact or use, is the only measure of success available to a technology company. It is the role of the government to scale the solution and drive impact.
3. Government Drives Impact
Digital transformation requires capacity improvements, increasing resilience, and ownership. Digitizing systems based on one suite of tools without putting governments and institutions in the decision-making driver’s seat with the ability to adapt runs the risk of re-creating vulnerabilities.
Focus on giving governments and implementing partners options when unforeseen circumstances happen (i.e., using open source solutions gives the government options to maintain/adapt the system in case a vendor solution becomes defunct).
Written by Fernando Ferreyra, Director of Software Development and Sarah Orton-Vipond, Director of Engagement & Partnerships
