How DPI can accelerate Africa’s push for a single market

Since 2019 when continental leaders launched the operational phase of the single market initiative under the Africa Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA), and then the official commencement of trade under the regime in January 2021, so much water has gone under the bridge. Efforts have since been deployed by individual counties, and even jointly, to accelerate steps toward the target for a single African market for goods and services in line with the African Union’s Agenda 2063.

As clearly emphasized from the beginning, the vision of the AfCFTA has been to build a single market of around 1.7 billion people with about $6.7 trillion in spending by 2030, when trade transactions happen seamlessly across borders with less cost and time wasted.

This lofty vision notwithstanding, that promise of fluid trade across borders still feels distant many years down the line, as trucks still queue for hours at checkpoints and traders shuffle stacks of paper documents to complete transactions.

These challenges and bureaucratic bottlenecks probably largely account for why only about 15.4 percent of trade in Africa currently takes place among African countries, according to figures from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Take the case of a trader in Kumasi, Ghana, who wants to sell her traditional Kente fabric to a shop owner in Yaounde, Cameroon. On paper, this should be pretty easy within the framework of the AfCFTA. In practice, however, the Kumasi business woman still faces a litany of paperwork, payment delays, and the challenge of proving who she is to a business person she’s never met.

Now, consider a different scenario in which she is able to verify her identity digitally, receive instant cross-border payment within minutes, and maybe sign a digital contract which is recognized across the jurisdictions of the two countries, all from her smartphone.

This is possible thanks to the digital interconnected rails of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). These are digital foundations of trust and connectivity that can move as quickly as the ideas and goods they hope to support.

True it is that across the continent, in the last few years, governments have been rolling out digital identity systems, real-time payment platforms and data-sharing and interoperability systems at a pace that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

These digital tools are not just technical platforms; they are the connecting blocks that can turn AfCFTA’s ambition into palpable reality, says Jaume Dubois, digital development consultant who masters Africa’s digital identity landscape.

DPI requires paradigm shift

But to get the right DPI in place, and in a manner that can truly facilitate cross-border trade, countries must be ready to change the paradigm. They must stop competing over systems, and start collaborating on frameworks, standards, and trust, according to Dubois.

“I work with countries individually, and I already see how difficult it is within a single country to achieve interoperability between different government bodies and their data systems. Cross-border interoperability is even more challenging,” Dubois recognizes.

“There are many countries that are clearly on the move. But DPI also represents a real paradigm change in mindset. It’s not just a technical upgrade or a simple digitalization exercise. There can be political barriers, infrastructure constraints, and in some cases low levels of literacy that make things very difficult,” he says.

“In fact, if you want to succeed with DPI, you need excellent execution and the right context. This is where we see the gap between ambition and reality. Some countries are able to move faster, others more slowly.”

To Dubois, the question is no longer whether DPI matters because it creates valuable data for governance and can allow countries to conduct trade with one another seamlessly. It is about how quickly DPI can be built, harmonized, and trusted, in order to unlock billions in efficiency gains, open up new pathways for digital and socio-economic inclusion, and enhance the chance to redefine Africa’s place in the global economy.

Rahul Parthe, Co-founder, Chairman and CTO of Tech5, agrees with Dubois. “Africa has moved beyond the question of whether digital ID and wallets are needed. The real conversation now is about how fast they can be scaled and how well they are connected to the economy,” he states.

“What we are seeing across the continent is a transition from isolated identity projects to platforms that can support financial services, public services, and private-sector innovation. Digital identities are becoming a key component of national digital ecosystems, not just a digital representation of an ID card.”

Tech5 worked together with Visa to develop a digital wallet for Ethiopia dubbed FaydaPass, and both partners are also collaborating on a similar project for Djibouti. They also have a seven-year collaboration to support the development of DPI around the world.

According to Parthe, the Ethiopia project comes with many lessons, and the first one is that digital wallets only succeed when they are part of a broader digital public infrastructure, not when they are launched as standalone applications.

“Beyond secure storage, the wallet is an agent that the citizen uses to interact with the digital systems. Behind the scenes, it relies on the strong trust framework and governance that ensures the citizen’s security and privacy. Enabling use cases and payments is the real driving factor. For this project, Tech5 provided technology components for Digital Public Infrastructure,” Parthe says.

“In Ethiopia, FaydaPass demonstrates how a government-backed wallet can act as a trusted delivery mechanism for both public and private services, starting with financial inclusion and expanding outward and setting a replicable model for the entire Africa. Inclusion is a core design principle in this project: agent-assisted access and biometric trust ensure participation even for those without smartphones,” he mentions.

Dubois agrees that digital wallets are very important because they are largely based on recognized standards. “Digital credentials can always be verified. You can trust the signature or go back to the backend to check the information. Compared to paper documents or physical cards, which can be forged, digital wallets significantly increase trust. Another key advantage is that information can be updated. People’s situations change, and trust depends on having fresh information,” he states.

Digital ID interoperability, trust

In West Africa, where the idea of a common interoperable digital ID has been abundantly discussed, including at the 2025 West Africa Economic Summit (WAES), Dubois says he has been involved in the process and sees how countries operate.

“I’m working on two ECOWAS projects with large consulting teams. One focuses on an e-ID roadmap, and the other on a common ECOWAS framework for identity interoperability. What I observe is that the positions of different countries vary widely. Their levels of progress are different, and they do not all want to share data, nor do they approach identity systems in the same way,” he tells Biometric Update.

He mentions that the different levels of progress notwithstanding, there is one point of convergence and that’s about standards.

“Standards are what matter. They are proven and global. The big change today with decentralized standards such as W3C standards is that they are sector-agnostic and country-agnostic. Before, we had travel standards, national ID standards, banking standards, trade standards. Now, with W3C, as long as you trust the issuer of a credential, you can use it across contexts,” he explains.

As Dubois puts it, that convergence on digital ID and DPI standards of interoperability and trust among countries is indispensable.

“For example, if you look at what is happening in West Africa with ECOWAS and the AES countries, which are trying to diverge politically, you still see convergence technically. Their new identity cards are ICAO-compliant cards. That already allows for interoperability,” Dubois says.

“Many of these countries are also implementing MOSIP as a digital public good. Using the same open-source platform helps create convergence and makes interoperability easier. At the same time, alongside identity frameworks, we are seeing the emergence of regional payment frameworks. Interoperability, digital wallets, W3C verifiable credentials. These are all opportunities to share and exchange trusted information,” the ID30 CEO posits.

Speaking further on implementing the right interoperability safeguards for decentralized ID, Dubois expresses concerns about what he fears could be “a new generation of digital vendor lock-in that mirrors the restrictive physical ID contracts of the past.”

To navigate this challenge, he suggests that decentralized ID providers must strictly adhere to the four critical layers of interoperability which are Legal, Organizational, Semantic, and Technical, as outlined in the World Bank ID4D Interoperability Framework practitioner’s guide.

“This framework ensures that Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) remains open and flexible, but decentralized ID (digital wallets and related technologies as W3C VC) are only ensuring the last one (technical) on the shelves, leaving the three others to be covered, with a risk of creating new proprietary silos. By adopting that four layers approach, Africa can safeguard against a new generation of vendor lock-in that could ruin the long-term benefits of an integrated single market,” says Dubois.

A trust framework, he adds, is also important given that cross-border trade is fundamentally based on trust. “Trust in identities, trust in data, and trust that someone signing a contract will pay for goods or services. Building that trust is not just about technology; it is also regulatory and institutional. That layer is extremely important,” he emphasizes.

As Parthe puts it, DPI interoperability is more of a question of shared trust and governance, than a technical challenge as it is often framed.

“Technically, interoperability is achievable. The bigger challenge is agreeing on common assurance levels, rules for reliance, liability, and data protection. Without those, no country is comfortable relying on another country’s digital identity for trade, payments, or access to services,” he says.

“The solution is to think in terms of progressive interoperability. Start with clear economic use cases like cross-border payments, logistics, customs and build trust incrementally. When countries see real value and low risk, cooperation accelerates. Interoperability then becomes an enabler of trade, not an abstract compliance exercise,” the Tech5 Co-founder, Chairman and CTO adds.

Building continental capacity

On another note, Dubois also speaks about challenges African countries face trying to maintain sovereignty and autonomy over their systems, and how the projects eventually end up running. He says because of this focus on sovereignty, countries sometimes fail to fully leverage local, regional, and continental capacities.

“Take MOSIP as an example. Several African countries now have deep knowledge of MOSIP. Ethiopia has significant expertize, Togo is developing capacity, and more countries are following. Yet there is still no strong regional community around this knowledge,” he states.

“MOSIP itself could help create such a community, but ultimately it is the responsibility of African countries to pool their efforts. They could, for example, create a regional branch or shared source-code governance and leverage this collective capacity.”

“Maintaining DPI requires a large number of highly specialized professionals. You cannot keep all of them busy full-time within a single country. By rationalizing efforts, sharing competencies, and creating regional talent pools, DPI becomes more sustainable and affordable,” he advises.

Sharing his thoughts on sovereignty and capacity, Parthe states: “Equally important are skills and capacity development. Interoperability is sustainable only when countries fully understand and control their own infrastructure. That confidence is what enables trust between systems and, ultimately, between economies.

“African countries need shared principles: common trust frameworks, interoperable standards, and mutual recognition, while retaining sovereignty over their national systems. Regional initiatives and continental platforms play a critical role in creating that alignment and reducing fragmentation,” he suggests.

Lessons from elsewhere, immediate priorities

According to Dubois, there are many initiatives that aim to encourage collaboration between countries which African nations can draw a leaf from.

He cites the example of MERCOSUR, a regional trade bloc in Latin America which countries in the region have leveraged to strengthen free trade, regional integration, and democratic cooperation.

“I believe the ASEAN model is more relevant. ASEAN focuses on building bilateral interoperability based on specific, clearly defined use cases. Countries know what they want to achieve and work together pragmatically.”

“In terms of technology, decentralized models such as digital wallets, verifiable credentials, and assurance levels like those proposed in Europe, are very promising. These standards help allocate levels of trust depending on the sensitivity of the use case. Over time, this can support real business transactions and cross-border trade,” he adds.

Parthe has similar thoughts. He believes cross-border DPI in Africa will not succeed through a single, centralized model. “It will succeed through alignment, not uniformity. As mentioned earlier, the evolution must be use case-led without which they will just become technical projects. There should be an effort in advertising success stories and making case studies when some of these use cases succeed. The beauty is that once the infrastructure is in place, building use cases becomes much easier.”

To Parthe, some of the immediate actions which African countries can take in terms of building proper DPI is to make sure they facilitate mutual recognition of digital identity at defined assurance levels, operationalize trade digitization and not just digitalization, ensure interoperable payments and easy cross-border transfers which enable faster trade, an then ensure inclusion by design.

“If these elements come together, digital public infrastructure can become one of the most powerful tools Africa can use to unlock intra-African trade and build a truly continental digital economy,” he asserts.

Dubois chimes in to say that because digitalization always risks creating exclusion and widening the digital divide, the right choices must be made. He cites the example of their DPI work in Madagascar saying inclusion was their first objective. The country has been implementing a digital transformation initiative with funding of more than $140 million from the World Bank.

“The enrolment system was designed to be offline-first, meaning it does not depend on connectivity. Data can even be transported manually. We also designed mobile enrolment kits. Instead of bulky suitcase kits, we developed lightweight backpack kits with solar panels and tablets. This was driven by the country’s needs, not by what vendors were offering,” he notes.

“Finally, the cards are QR-based and can even be printed on paper. We included low-cost security features that allow face verification without any device. That is what inclusive design looks like, starting from the realities of the population.”

Article Topics

Africa  |  African Union  |  Agenda 2063  |  biometrics  |  cross-border data sharing  |  digital economy  |  digital public infrastructure  |  digital wallets  |  ID30  |  TECH5