The Lab's Center for Digital Development builds alliances that capitalize on the expertise of new partners, maximize the return on USAID's investment, and ensure sustainability by supporting market-driven solutions. We have co-founded alliances with more than 150 partners, leveraging over $150 million of investments from the private sector and other donors. Our flagship partnerships are:

Alliance for Affordable Internet

Access to the Internet drives economic growth, but broadband costs are prohibitively high for most people in developing countries. USAID’s partnership with Google.org, Omidyar Network, DFID, and a broad coalition of governments, technology providers, civil society groups, and academia is empowering policy makers with the tools and resources to facilitate more open, competitive and innovative markets. This partnership, the Alliance for Affordable Internet, aims to bring broadband prices down to no more than 5 percent of monthly income, enabling the next two billion users to come online.

Better Than Cash Alliance

Shifting payments from cash to electronic has the potential to improve the livelihoods of billions by advancing financial inclusion while giving governments, the development community and the private sector a more efficient, transparent, and often safer means of disbursing payments. The Better Than Cash Alliance supports this transition by advocating for shifts of major payment streams from cash to electronic and by providing guidance and technical assistance on implementation of the transition. Founded by USAID, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Citi, Ford Foundation, Mastercard, Omidyar Network, UNCDF, and Visa, the alliance also includes 13 development community partners and the governments of Malawi, Colombia, Afghanistan, Kenya, Peru, the Philippines, and Rwanda.

Catalyst: Inclusive Cashless Payment Partnership

Catalyst is a multi-stakeholder partnership is designed to scale digital payments systems in India, catalyzing an exponential increase in cashless payments in select geographic locations. These locations will be selected based on criteria such as smartphone penetration, the local economy, and administrative feasibility. This launch marks the next phase of partnership between USAID and India’s Ministry of Finance to help catalyze the rapid adoption of digital payments in India as a step toward achieving Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of universal financial inclusion.

Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP)

CGAP

CGAP (the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) is a global partnership of 34 leading organizations, including USAID, that seek to advance financial inclusion. CGAP develops innovative solutions through practical research and active engagement with financial service providers, policy makers, and funders to enable approaches at scale. Housed at the World Bank, CGAP combines a pragmatic approach to responsible market development with an evidence-based advocacy platform to increase access to the financial services the poor need to improve their lives.

Digital Impact Alliance

Although digital technology has the potential to improve the lives of millions of poor and vulnerable people throughout the developing world, few innovations thus far have achieved economically sustainable scale. Launched in 2016, the Digital Impact Alliance's (DIAL) mission is to accelerate the collective efforts of government, industry and development organizations to realize the vision of a more inclusive digital economy for the underserved in emerging markets. The partnership is supported by USAID, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Sida, and the UN Foundation. 

Women and the Web Alliance

This Alliance will introduce girls and women to the transformative benefits of the Internet. By creating a movement to addresses the Internet gender gap, partners USAID, NetHope, Intel Corporation, World Pulse, World Vision, UN Women, and Women in Technology in Nigeria aim to bring more than 600,000 young women online in Nigeria and Kenya in the next 3 years. This effort will expand opportunities for young women to generate greater income, receive a quality education, increase their sense of empowerment and equity, extend their support networks, and increase their political participation.

YouthMappers University Consortium

YouthMappers is a global community of university students, faculty and scholars who create and use open geographic data in support of USAID development goals. Created through the USAID GeoCenter’s Mapping for Resilience University Consortium, YouthMappers founding partners are Texas Tech University, George Washington University, and West Virginia University. The program seeks to not just build maps, but to build mappers, supporting universities and colleges to offer meaningful global learning experiences, create geospatial data where it is needed most, build a socially engaged citizenry, enhance long-term scientific capacity around the world, and foster youth exchange and leadership.