Ethiopia kicks off digital ID enrolment drive in Addis Ababa

A month-long digital ID enrollment campaign gets underway in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, today October 10 in a move that intends to integrate the digital ID with the civil registration system of the capital city. It also comes at the country is registering meaningful gains in its digital government implementation push.

The enrollment drive is part of a partnership which the Addis Ababa Civil Registration and Residence Services Agency entered into with the Ethiopia National ID Program (NIDP), the two bodies said in an announcement. The activity has the support of the Addis Ababa city administration.

According to the Executive Director of NIDP, Yodahe Zemichael, the campaign seeks to register citizens and legal residents in 11 sub-cities and 119 district of Addis Ababa. It will enable them obtain secure and verified Fayda digital ID which is vital for having access to a panoply of public services in the country.

The Director General of the Addis Ababa Civil Registration and Residency Services Agency, Yonas Alemayehu, said the digital ID enrollment will contribute to improving civil registration processes in the capital. He assured that the necessary steps have been taken for the exercise to unfold in a hitch-free manner.

Both partners say the activity is part of a bigger campaign by the ID authority to expand digital ID registration coverage in the country.

As part of this objective, NIDP has a Memorandum of Understanding with Ethio Telecom which is a major digital ID enrollment partnership. The telco launched its enrollment operations in April, and has now added 160 more enrollment centers in a bid to reach more people and communities.

The additional centers have been established in various towns in many regions of the country as the telco aims to register at least 32 million of the 90 million Fayda digital IDs the NIDP intends to issue over the next five years.

In a recent case study, citizen registration solution provider Laxton described its partnership with the NIDP which is poised to register 90 million people for the Fayda by 2030. Lexton contextualized the project, the challenges on the field and the services it is supplying to the customer.

Ethiopia’s determination to expand the Fayda is rooted in the government’s conviction that the digital ID will be vital in the implementation of a digital government strategy which the country intends to launch soon, covering the period 2025-2030.

Already, the digital ID has been credited with playing a major role in advancing the country’s digital government efforts as reflected in an improved performance in the UN’s 2024 E-Government Survey. The country jumped 10 places in the ranking.

To date, NIDP has issued 8.8 million digital IDs, completed 3.2 million authentications, with 32 agencies already having integrated the ID system for service delivery.

Article Topics

biometric enrollment  |  biometrics  |  civil registration  |  digital government  |  digital ID  |  Ethiopia  |  Ethiopia National ID Program (NIDP)  |  Fayda