The numbers are striking: over 288,000 repositories with public sector contributions, nearly 93,000 identified public sector contributors, and 112 UN member states involved in more than 10 projects each. Beyond the figures, three findings stand out. First, ministries of Environment, Science, and Health lead public sector contributions. Second, cross-border collaboration between administrations is happening organically, most of the times without formal agreements - civil servants from different countries already co-develop software in practice. Third, open source contribution correlates strongly with e-government maturity: the states that contribute most are also those ranked highest on digital government indices.

This talk presents the methodology (how public sector contributors are identified at scale in a 20+ billion file archive), the results, and what they mean for the conference’s theme of digital sovereignty: open source is not a marginal activity of a few pioneering administrations, but a measurable, growing, and collaborative dimension of government. Attendees - OSPO leads, policy makers, and practitioners - will learn how to explore the data for their own country and how to use it to advocate for public code.