World Bank supports Mozambique to scale up free issuance of national ID cards

The government of Mozambique is enjoying support from the World Bank to ease up access to national ID card cards for free and bridge the identification gap in the country.

Already, more 140,000 individuals have been able to get national ID cards in the pilot phase of the program which started in November last year. This has helped give legal identity to many who were cut off from access to many services for years due to a lack of an ID card, according to a World Bank blog post.

Citizens in the country, including school-going children, had complained of several hurdles in obtaining ID cards such as the high cost involved and difficult accessibility to ID enrolment centers. This meant they could not easily have access to important services such as education.

As part of efforts to clear off these barriers and facilitate access to legal ID, the World Bank, through the Digital Governance and Economy Project (EDGE) and the Identification for Development (ID4D) initiative, partnered up with Mozambique’s National Directorate of Civil Identification (DNIC) and other government bodies to deliver the credentials for free.

In another project which started in 2022, the World Bank, also through the ID4D, also helped Mozambique issue identity cards and birth certificates to forcibly displaced persons.

By early 2023, over 21,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) had benefitted from the campaign which was designed to issue ID cards and birth certificates at a go.

Mozambique is said to be making giant strides in its digital transformation drive with a majority of the country’s 33 million people now able to access public and private sector services thanks a digital ID system implemented by Muhlbauer.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital identity  |  Identification for Development (ID4D)  |  legal identity  |  Mozambique  |  Mühlbauer  |  National Directorate of Civil Identification (DNIC)  |  national ID  |  World Bank