ID4Africa unveils concept note, ambassador class for 2023 AGM

The 2023 ID4Africa augmented general meeting billed for Nairobi, Kenya in May will spotlight digital public infrastructure, African policy perspectives, a major CRVS project and data protection in dedicated workshops.

This is contained in a concept note recently released by the movement, detailing the program of activities throughout the three-day event.

According to the note, the 2023 AGM opens on 23 May with two plenaries which will consist of a high-level policy panel, a keynote address from the ID4Africa Executive Chairman Dr. Joseph Atick and focused presentations on various topics.

Day two will see a continuation of plenaries dedicated to different exciting topics.

The meeting rounds off on 25 May with four workshops on four important themes which include ‘Building people-centric and demand-driven digital public infrastructure to transform public and private sector services,’ ‘Policy and regulatory challenges for digital identity: the African perspective,’ ‘Developing the African CVRS Shared Asset,’ and ‘Privacy and data protection in identification systems.’

Speakers will include African government ministers and representatives of other governments, technical and policy experts, and experts from biometrics and other digital identity technology providers.

The program is designed to share best practices beyond registration and credentialing from around the continent, identify success factors, explore ways to collaborate on digital public infrastructure to support services, examine new innovations, stimulate dialogue and collaboration, particularly on the workshop topics, and provide hands-on exposure to cutting-edge technologies through the exhibition and a hackathon.

While ID4Africa says much of the program has already been assigned, final proposals for speakers and topics are due by January 26.

The full program including speakers is scheduled to be announced in February.

Ambassador class unveiled

The number of ID4Africa Ambassadors in the 2023 class has grown again, as have the ratio of women and senior officials represented from 48 countries across Africa.

A total of 93 Ambassadors have been selected, 37 percent of whom are women and 40 percent of whom hold the rank of Director General or higher, according to an announcement from the organization.

ID4Africa Ambassadors advocate for the creation of effective identity ecosystems with all sectoral stakeholders and perform key services to help accelerate the ID4D (identity for development) agenda in their countries, the announcement says.

“We are proud to see the Program grow from strength to strength,” comments Atick in the announcement. “The Ambassadors Office has evolved from acting as a liaison between the ID4Africa Movement and national identity stakeholders to becoming a critically important governance body, providing guidance and direction to ensure that the Movement and our programs, specifically our AGMs and LiveCasts — our ongoing capacity building and knowledge sharing platform — respond to the needs of member countries and the wider African continent and anticipate those needs over time.”

“Much of the success and impact of the Movement is due to the dedication and efforts of these outstanding men and women and we look forward to continuing to work with them to service Africa’s identity needs and the ID4D agenda,” he adds.

The ambassador program also now includes 13 Ambassadors Emeritus, who have completed terms of at least four years and remain engaged with the cause of legal and digital identity in their countries.

ID4Africa unveiled the theme of the 2023 event in November.

Article Topics

Africa  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  ID4Africa  |  ID4Africa 2023  |  ID4Africa Ambassadors Program