News in Brief

ID4Africa LiveCast Focuses on Ethiopia

Ethiopia is among the latest countries to launch its digital ID project, and the project is ‘advancing rapidly,’ according to ID4Africa Executive Chairman Dr Joseph Atick during the i-on-Ethiopia section of Episode 34 of the ID4Africa’s LiveCasts.

Among the panellists, Ethiopia’s National ID Programme’s (NIPD) Executive Director, Yodahe Zemichael, said that the country is preparing for a full national roll-out by ensuring that the foundation is ready. The Fayda (roughly translated as ‘value’ from both Swahili and Arabic) biometric national ID functions as both a legal identity and a functional identity, he explained, as part of the civil registry system and also an element in the country’s digital economic transformation plan.

Al Shiferaw, of public health consultants JSI, talked about the importance of Ethiopia’s government and people having ownership over the system. This was a driving factor behind the adoption of the MOSIP (Modular Open Source Identity Platform) -based system, which allows local implementation, management and maintenance of the ID.