D4D Hub

At a Glance

Across the globe, digital technologies are transforming economies and societies at an unprecedented pace. The promises and perils of the digital transformation range widely. We strive to shape digital economies that put people at their heart, protect citizens’ fundamental rights and provide equal chances to everyone.

In December 2020, the EU launched the Digital for Development (D4D) Hub, inaugurating a new era for the global digital cooperation. EU Member States including Germany, France, Belgium, Estonia and Luxembourg are at the forefront of promoting new international partnerships on digital transformation as Team Europe. They identified a clear need for aligning their digital initiatives for increased impact. The D4D Hub is the key tool to have a Team Europe in action with unprecedented levels of coordination, advancing multi-stakeholder dialogue to leverage expertise and resources and share best practices.

The digital future will link people and businesses across the globe closer together. In an interconnected world, the EU starts its digital cooperation with Africa. As the D4D Hub’s first operational regional component, the “AU-EU D4D Hub” advances new digital partnerships and investments for a fair and inclusive African digital economy.

Launch Event

The Goals

The establishment of the D4D Hub as a multi-stakeholder platform marks a turning point for supporting a human-centric digital transformation in partner countries. The D4D Hub bundles the multitude of digital initiatives by European actors into one strategic and coordinated approach. This will enable the EU to strengthen its global position to promote its values, standards and strategic interests for a fair and inclusive digital future.

The D4D Hub operationalizes the Team Europe approach by uniting key stakeholders from European Member States, tech companies, civil society and financial institutions. In the D4D Hub’s different regional branches (Africa, Asia, Latin America,Caribbean, as well as in the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood), the platform will include all relevant stakeholders from respective regions. This will allow for unprecedented levels of coordination and continued multi-stakeholder dialogue, scaling of investments and impact.

The D4D Hub was jointly designed and developed with EU Member States and European development agencies (GIZ, Enabel, LuxDev, AFD/Expertise France, MFA Estonia). Eleven EU Member States have signed a Letter of Intent to cooperate under the D4D Hub (DE, BE, FR, EE, LU, ES, PT, SE, NL, LT, FI). European tech companies through the D4D Coalition (e.g. SAP, Orange, Nokia, Ericsson, Vodafone, and more) have also been actively consulted.

Operating Principles

The D4D Hub is guided by five operating principles:

D4D in Action

As the first operational regional component, the D4D Hub will kick-off activities in Africa from January 2021 onwards.