VISION AND PURPOSE: DEVELOPMENT IN A DIGITAL AGE
USAID envisions a world where open, inclusive, secure, and rights-respecting digital ecosystems enable people everywhere to thrive.
In today’s digitally connected world, there is a growing recognition that open, inclusive, secure, and rights-respecting digital ecosystems* —and the life-enhancing and lifesaving services they enable— are fundamental components of sustainable development and humanitarian response. Cutting across every sector, geography, and demographic, digital technologies and cybersecurity are a fundamental part of the development journeys of our partner countries and are increasingly crucial to deepening development cooperation, optimizing humanitarian action, and understanding and reacting to conflicts and crises. The digital landscape has shifted significantly in the last ten years as internet usage in low- and middle-income countries has roughly doubled.1 Internet platform companies now dominate the technology sector; devices have become smarter, smaller, and more ubiquitous; person-level data are being collected at unprecedented scale; and artificial intelligence (AI)2 is reshaping the way people work, access information, and engage with one another.