Cabo Verde, Central African Republic launch digital govt platforms to streamline service access

Two African nations, the Republic of Cabo Verde (known commonly as Cape Verde) and the Central African Republic (CAR), recently launched dedicated digital government platforms to facilitate access to public sector services by their citizens.

In CAR, the recently unveiled digital government service is called Dûnîa, which means “the world” or “universe” in the widely spoken local Sango language, according to an official announcement.

The system, which is implemented by indigenous technology firm Eden TiiiT, is “built on an open-source microservices architecture with high resiliency, encrypted data structure, and API interoperability.”

President Faustin Archange Touadera presided over the launching ceremony and emphasized the importance of the project for the country’s national development, saying it aligns with the objectives of the National Development Plan (NDP 2024-2028).

The Central African nation has been on a socio-economic recovery path after many years of political instability and insecurity, and the government believes digital technology can play a critical role in that economic transformation drive.

For a start, the digital government platform involves only the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and International Cooperation, as all transactions with the ministry will now be possible entirely digitally. It will however be progressively extended to the entire public administration over time.

According to the government, this move will reduce processing times by 70 percent, contribute about 30 percent to potential savings on administrative costs, harmonize all government databases and drive overall administrative efficiency, transparency and accountability.

In his comments after the launch, the Minister of the Economy, Prof. Richard Filakota, said Dûnîa’s significance reverberates beyond digital government. “It is an integrated, modular and scalable digital platform that maps all of the ministry’s administrative, operational and strategic processes. A strategic lever for development and digitalisation, and an important element of our Ambition28 programme,” he said.

Also commenting on the choice of a public-private partnership with a local company, Filakota added: “This model underlines the growing role of the local private sector in the country’s digital transformation and sends a strong signal to international partners and investors. With Dûnîa, the Central African Republic is positioning itself as a pioneer in digital administrative modernization. A model of digital sovereignty for a country.”

Cabo Verde unveils unified digital government portal

Recently, the Prime Minister of Cape Verde, Ulisses Correia e Silva, also presided over a ceremony to launch a unified government portal dubbed Gov.CV to improve access to digital services. Gov.CV is available on web and as a mobile application.

According to the government, the platform will act as the single gateway to access various public services in the areas of civil registration and identity, financial and tax-related operations, higher education, as well as transportation and other social services.

The government says more public sector services will be onboarded to the system, which it says has been built to enhance efficiency, facilitate interoperability and increase transparency in the delivery of public services.

The Minister of State Modernization and Public Administration, Eurico Monteiro, recently referenced the digital government portal as one major aspect that is expected to also drive citizen participation in governance. The government official was speaking during a multi-stakeholder forum related to Cape Verde’s open governance strategy.

In 2020, Cape Verde contracted Zetes for biometric gates at its main airport as part of the island country’s digital transformation march.

Article Topics

Africa  |  Cape Verde  |  Central African Republic  |  digital government  |  digital identity  |  digital sovereignty  |  digital wallets  |  Dûnîa  |  EDEN TiiiT  |  Gov.CV  |  government services  |  public-private partnerships