Kenya’s national digital ID: Lofty project on a bumpy ride

Since its rollout in 2023 as a replacement for the highly controversial Huduma Namba, the Maisha Namba digital ID project in Kenya has faced several hiccups on the way of its implementation. This is despite the acceptability of the project by the Kenyan people as one of the ways of driving the country’s digital economy and leading the nation on the path of attaining its critical sustainable development goals.

Just weeks ago, the Nairobi High Court again ordered another halt to the rollout process of a credential which the Kenyan government considers the bedrock of its digital transformation drive.

It is the third such injunction for digital ID issuance to be paused in the country in four years, and the second in the Maisha Namba era, which raises questions about what the government could be doing differently with the digital ID rollout. In the meantime, such injunctions have led to a huge ID card issuance backlog in the country.

Who funds the Maisha Namba digital ID project?

Following this string of controversy, one question observers may ask is what the funding sources of the digital identity project are, and if such funders are not doing enough to ensure the government delivers a legally sound and widely accepted project using a whole-of-society approach.

This is because in most cases where there are lending partners for digital ID or digital public infrastructure (DPI) projects, generally speaking, there are minimum conditions set for the disbursement of funding like is the case with the World Bank in Nigeria.

In Kenya though, the case appears to be different. According to our information, there has been no publicly announced external lender or foreign funding partner for the Maisha Namba project. However, the Gates Foundation announced in October last year that it was offering advisory support for the project. The Kenyan government has also spoken in the past about collaborations with Pakistan’s NADRA as well as India in the light of the digital ID scheme.

Also, in 2023, the Kenyan government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) for the digital ID rollout support, as reported by Nairobi Wire. Per the MoU, the UN agency was expected to assist Kenya on three issues namely the acquisition of funding and other resources, technical backing and general oversight.

The little public information available indicates that the government proposed a budgetary allocation of 6.88 billion Kenyan shilling (US$53.3 million) in the 2024/2025 financial year for population management services which include issuance of 7.5 million digital and third generation ID cards and the rollout of the Unique Personal Identifier (UPI) among other activities.

With this nonetheless, it is not very clear if all or a part of this budget allocation will come directly from internal or foreign sources. Kenya gets foreign money to fund its state budget and it comes from various sources including bilateral and multilateral aid, private investors and international financial institutions.

Research and advisory firm Caribou Digital notes that the government attempted to introduce new fees of 1,000 shillings (approximately US$7.70) for national ID applications, and greatly increase the fee for replacing ID cards. Again, the move was rejected in court.

“The government may be trying to extract money from Kenya’s population and pay for its costly new digital identity project (Maisha Namba) by hiking fees,” says Caribou Digital.

Repeating past mistakes?

Despite the professed good intentions of the government, digital rights activists in Kenya believe state authorities are not learning from the past mistakes that were made by the previous administration during the era of the Huduma Namba.

To them, there are two major things which the government has failed to do with the Maisha Namba: conducting a proper data protection impact assessment (DPIA) study and enacting a comprehensive data protection law, as well as introducing an inclusive ID management policy that factors in groups such as members of border and historically marginalized communities and settlements. Early this year, Amnesty International, in this regard, issued a policy advisory urging the Kenyan government to respect fundamental human rights in the implementation of the Maisha Namba.

Back in 2019, Caribou Digital, in an in-depth analysis of Kenya’s digital identification system (the Huduma Namba at the time), anticipated some of the problems the government has faced. The analysis pointed out that the system was exclusionary because it “prevented some marginalized ethnic groups from accessing identity systems that are vital for participating in political and economic life.” The report also called for stronger legislative and regulatory frameworks and the participation of civil society organizations in birthing a digital ID system that factors in the real needs and protects the rights of the Kenyan people.

The report also recommended, among other things that, development organizations partnering with the Kenyan government could use their “political and economic leverage to advocate for an independent authority with powers to conduct periodic audits, offer recommendations and to sanction state and private sector identification systems.”

From the forgoing, it is clear that the government of Kenya, which is currently facing political hard times which have seen anti-government protests, still has an uphill task when it comes to executing a smooth sail with this important digital ID project.

Article Topics

Africa  |  biometrics  |  Caribou Digital  |  digital ID  |  identity management  |  Kenya  |  Maisha Namba  |  UNDP