Development cooperation: Design principles

Digital cooperation has moved into playing an increasingly central role. In public administration, industrial production, healthcare, agriculture and beyond, no essential process can be conceived without software.

A cooperative rather than competitive approach among operators is particularly required. It maximises the effectiveness of investments facilitates innovation, creativity, and favours shared solutions over the exploitation of privileged market positions.

A paradigm shift has occured in recent international policies involving private-sector operators in development-cooperation initiatives. In this context, a similar shift is needed in the digital world: placing the method at the centre, adopting legal and technological frameworks that encourage cooperation and prevent the mistakes made in more industrialised countries by counteracting unfair restrictions on the (re)use and further development of the assets generated by cooperation products or services.

The most significant contribution of development-cooperation projects resides in the assets generated through research and development activities which are aimed at finding innovative solutions to issues and needs not yet adequately addressed by existing market offerings. The assets of such activities are typically creative works such as software, drawings, project documentation, user manuals, and operational instructions.

Proprietary software and copyright represent an unsustainable restriction: all rights to (re)use, modify, and further develop the software and other R&D assets are reserved for rights holders, thereby excluding other stakeholders, such as users or third-party developers.

Reversing the perspective, free cultural artifacts¹ — of which Free Software is a subset — are the source code that enables development-cooperation processes to be executed. Those artifacts allow for the use, study, modification, and improvement of assets in a shared manner, guaranteeing full freedom of action (computing agency) to both users and other public and private operators.

Free cultural works are shared in a way that guarantees all operators the freedom to commercialise products and services without the need to obtain licences from the rights holder, allowing them to maximise profit. The licences associated with free cultural works represent the most effective legal instrument to ensure that the outcome remains non-exclusive and does not generate dominant positions over other operators. All the while simultaneously safeguarding technological independence for partner countries in the medium to long term.

For these reasons, we believe that Free Software and free cultural artifacts should serve as the technological and organisational foundation of development cooperation.This ensures that the outcomes of investments can be reused worldwide without incurring additional licensing costs or facing legal and/or technical restrictions. At the same time, Free Software fosters knowledge and technology transfer, skills dissemination, and creative expression in a decentralised, inclusive, and sustainable manner for partner countries.

For further reading, see the document Free Software in international development cooperation published by the Free Software Foundation Europe.

An increasing amount of proprietary software is now distributed under the software as a service (saas)² model, which depends on a reliable internet connection. moreover, the data and documents managed through these services are stored on the providers’ servers, which are not readily accessible on users’ devices due to unreliable connectivity. For the sake of simplicity, we refer to this approach as cloud-first.

Digital-transformation projects in development cooperation often face challenges such as unstable or low-bandwidth internet connectivity, particularly in remote areas far from major urban centres in partner countries. Additionally, access to electricity is frequently unreliable. For these reasons, we consider a “local-first” approach, rather than a “cloud-first” model, to be generally more suitable in these contexts.

Services based on the local-first approach are designed to ensure that users can always access and use the software installed directly on their own devices (locally), even without an internet connection. this model guarantees ownership of ones data and documents, which remain locally available and are synchronised automatically whenever connectivity is restored³. By enabling offline work and seamless (re)synchronisation, local-first software ensures business continuity for every user and control, regardless of network reliability.

Moreover, 'asynchronous working methods — unlike synchronous ones — offer greater flexibility by supporting a distributed model of collaboration. While this approach may initially seem less efficient than centrally coordinated synchronous work, (real-time workflows), it proves far more effective over the medium and long term. Asynchronous work enables agile process management, ensures traceability and helps consolidate distributed work, ultimately maximising the impact and value of activities carried out locally/.

Originally a software-design paradigm, the "local first" approach becomes our guiding principle for all development cooperation projects. in this context, the locals who come first are the communities themselves. Empowered by the principles of free software and free cultural works means being able to freely work with not as many legal and/or technical restrictions. These communities can adapt the code of their work⁴ to suit their needs, ensuring it remains up to date, resilient, sustainable and inclusive.

System updates⁵ are not only essential for security and functional enhancements they also represent a shared responsibility⁶. As all systems, including digital ones, operate within constantly evolving technical, social, and organisational environments, it is crucial that organisations adopt methods and tools that allow them to adapt to these changes. This is especially important in development cooperation, where keeping pace with the evolving context in partner countries is key to ensuring long-term relevance.

Software-based technical systems are increasingly being used to restrict users from freely updating or repairing their own devices⁷, whether it be independently or by relying on trusted professionals with appropriate expertise. This restrictive practice is known as parts pairing⁸.

Without the right to repair, companies and organisations lose time and money. researchers from the United States Public Interest Research Groups — a consumer-advocacy association — estimate that such restrictions cost 40 billion dollars per year (in the US alone)⁹. At the same time, the authorisation system prevents independent repair businesses from flourishing, pushing them out of the market.

The negative impact of this type of lock-in is so severe that various governments and institutions are attempting to address it by introducing specific legislation, such as eu directive 2024/1799 of 13 june 2024 on common rules to promote the repair of consumer goods, or laws in certain individual US states¹⁰ .

All this is simply unacceptable in the context of development cooperation. To avoid repeating mistakes made elsewhere, we believe it is necessary to be bolder and more forward-looking by adopting a more radical approach to prevent this type of lock-in': reject DRM (Digital Restriction Management)¹¹ and recognise that unrepairability is merely a symptom whose underlying cause is the absence of software freedom¹².

Thanks to the absence of software-imposed constraints on repair, local communities can develop their own commercial support and repair network, capable of adequately responding to their ongoing need to update and adapt their devices⁷ to the evolution of the local environmental context.