Transforming Sri Lanka's Digital Future; How Interoperability Shapes Sri Lanka's National Digital Blueprint

COLOMBO (News 1st); The National Digital Economy Strategy 2030, unveiled by the the experts in the country, aims to transform the country into a digitally empowered society. 

With an aim to elevate the digital economy's contribution to GDP from USD 3.7 billion to USD 15 billion by 2030, Sri Lanka strives to make the country a hub for innovation in the Asia-Pacific region. 

"Interoperability" is one of the key driving factors in making the National Digital Strategy successful. 

Interoperability allows different digital systems across all sectors, government, finance, healthcare, education, and private sector to communicate and work together. 

This eliminates duplication, speeds up processes, and improves access.

Why is Interoperability a crucial factor? 

A *digital-first strategy* is not just about technology, it’s about connecting and facilitating systems, institutions, and users. Interoperability is the backbone of this. 

It ensures that systems work together smoothly, services are efficient, and the ecosystem is agile and inclusive.

Sri Lanka has undertaken several key initiatives to enhance interoperability across its digital infrastructure, to create a more efficient, connected and inclusive digital ecosystem.

Notable efforts such as 'Lanka Government Network' (LGN) - a high-speed, secure network connecting over 850 government institutions which facilitates seamless communication among ministries, departments, and agencies - are a crucial factor that pushes interoperability. 

Additionally, The National Data Exchange (NDX) serves as a centralized platform for secure, efficient data sharing among government entities, GovPay Platform, LankaQR, Common Electronic Fund Transfer Switch (CEFTS) a real-time interbank fund transfer system all examples of initiatives helping with Interoperability of Sri Lanka's National Digital Strategy, Inspired by India's Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), reusable, modular tech infrastructure. 

While these initiatives help with driving the interoperability factor in the digital economy, it is also a crucial factor to study how interoperability inherently helps with ensuring the success of the National Digital Strategy. 

For Example;
National Data Exchange (NDX); A platform for standardized and secure data exchange among government bodies acts as the *central hub* for data APIs between systems, ensuring different platforms can talk to each other, this reduces manual and ad hoc data sharing, which facilitates drastic efficiency and reduce human errors, facilitating Data Standardization. 

Adding to more tech-savvy initiatives, GovPay Platform, A digital payment gateway for government services. This Integrates multiple payment methods (cards, mobile, wallets) into one platform, standardizing payment processes across agencies, providing citizens a consistent user experience and enabling back-end systems, finance, and treasury to interact seamlessly.

LankaQR: A national QR code-based payment system helps the payment process run seamlessly, reducing the time required to settle payments. 

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) - Inspired by India’s DP, a plug-and-play tech module. Encourages reuse of open APIs, standards, and digital components, ensuring cross-platform functionality across government, private, and citizen-facing services. A significant feature that could hopefully, help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of system performance. 

Each of these initiatives addresses a different layer of interoperability , from connectivity (LGN), data (NDX), to payments (GovPay, LankaQR, CEFTS) and infrastructure (LGC, DPI-inspired modules). 

Together, they create a connected digital ecosystem, reducing fragmentation, improving efficiency, and enabling seamless service delivery across the Sri Lankan digital ecosystem.