By Wendy Chamberlin (Senior Advisor, Climate and Market Linkages, Trickle Up) and Babitha George (Partner, Quicksand)

For nearly two decades, discussions about digital solutions have centered on a familiar question: do digital tools drive meaningful impact, or does adoption simply reflect availability? Time and again, the sector has been reminded that access and usage alone are poor measures of success.

As digital and AI-enabled solutions promise more cost-efficient programming and faster responses to complex challenges, this tension has become even more apparent. Measuring whether people can access or use a phone tells us little about whether these solutions are sufficient. What is more important to understand are the decisions, behaviors, and conditions surrounding phone usage that determine if a digital solution can lead to meaningful impact.

Building something quickly is not the same as solving the problem for the people it is intended to serve. To understand how digital solutions can truly lead to impact, we need to consider and design for digital agency.

What Access and Usage Fail to Capture

The development sector has long relied on a variety of indicators to measure the impact of digital solutions. These benchmarks—such as phone ownership, internet access, bank account ownership, or school enrollment—help establish a common understanding of progress. But indicators point toward impact, not endpoints. The challenge comes when we treat indicators as the end goal instead of asking what conditions made those outcomes possible. A woman may have a phone in her hand, but that does not mean she can use it independently, decide when to use it, or continue using it once a program ends.

When we overlook those underlying conditions, we risk designing for a user who represents only a small fraction of the people a solution is meant to serve. We assume that access means control, and that usage means agency.

Our research repeatedly challenged those assumptions. Across interviews with 93 women in Odisha and Jharkhand, and through the broader work that Trickle Up and Quicksand have undertaken to understand women’s digital lives, we found that digital agency depends on three conditions working together. Those conditions also look different for every woman, reinforcing that digital agency is not a single problem to solve, a linear progression, or a permanent state once achieved.

The Three Conditions of Digital Agency

Digital agency depends on three interconnected conditions. The first is material: does she have a working phone, reliable access to charging and network coverage, and money for data? The second is individual capability: does she know how to use it independently, and will those skills last without ongoing support? The third is social and normative: is she able to use the phone when and how she wants, or do social expectations and household dynamics limit her choices?

Think of these as a three-legged stool: remove one leg, and the whole structure falls. This is the same for digital agency: a woman may have both a phone and the skills to use it, but still avoid using it if doing so carries a cost. Or she may have permission and a device, but lack the confidence or knowledge to use it effectively. Programs that address only one condition and assume the others will follow only solve part of the problem.

Our most striking finding wasn’t about access, it was that regression was more common than progress. Skills fade without regular practice. As one Smart Sakhi (community-level female program facilitators) said, “If they don’t use it for three days, they forget. So, we have to repeat it again and again.” Confidence built during a program often erodes once support ends. Digital agency is not a permanent state; it must be continually reinforced, alone with the conditions that enable it.

Why the Framework Travels Across Contexts

These three conditions were not predetermined before the research began. They emerged from what women in Odisha and Jharkhand shared about their experiences with phones. Rather than imposing an academic framework, we synthesized patterns we saw from their lived realities.

That makes the framework useful beyond the communities where we conducted the research. A digital solution designed for rural Jharkhand cannot simply be transplanted to urban Kenya without significant adaptation because its design will not reflect the context. But the three conditions, and the need for them to work together, remain relevant across contexts. What changes is how each condition manifests locally and how they interact. That underlying architecture is what can be replicated elsewhere.

That makes the framework useful beyond the communities where we conducted the research. A digital solution designed for rural Jharkhand cannot simply be transplanted to urban Kenya without significant adaptation. But the three conditions—and the need for them to work together—remain relevant across contexts. What changes is how each condition is expressed locally and how they interact. That underlying architecture is what can be applied elsewhere.

This has important implications for how digital solutions are designed. Too often, they assume a user who acts independently, makes decisions freely, and faces few constraints. That was not the reality for most of the women in our research. Digital capability was often built through relationships: women learned with the support of family members, peers, or facilitators who made it feel safe to try something new. Those same relationships, however, could also limit learning by discouraging phone use or deciding those skills were unnecessary. Designing for digital agency therefore means designing for the social context around the individual, not just for the individual holding the phone.

What This Means for Those Who Fund and Build Solutions

For those who are designing or funding digital solutions for women, the key question is not only whether a tool works, but whether the conditions that enable meaningful and sustained use are present in the context where the solution is being introduced. This requires understanding how digital agency is shaped, whether these conditions are being maintained over time, and whether the women whose lives are affected have informed the design process.

Applying this framework requires more time and attention upfront, but it helps funders, implementers, and researchers develop more contextualized solutions. The following questions can help reveal how the three conditions of digital agency show up in different contexts:

Material conditions

• Does she own or have reliable access to a phone?
• Can she charge it, stay connected, and afford data, repairs, or replacement?
• Does she have the time, privacy, and opportunity to use it?
• What role does the phone play in her daily life?

Individual capability

• What can she read, understand, and do independently on the device?
• How does she learn, practice, and maintain her skills over time?
• Who supports her learning, and who may unintentionally limit it?

Social and normative conditions

• Who in the household influences decisions about the phone and how it is used?
• How is phone use perceived in the community?
• What social or practical costs come with using a phone, sharing it, or asking for help?

Digital agency is not created by providing access alone; it emerges when women have the resources, capabilities, and social conditions to use digital tools in ways that are meaningful and sustainable in their own lives. Designing for digital agency means moving beyond asking whether a solution reaches people and asking whether it enables them to make choices, build confidence, and maintain control over how technology fits into their lives.

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