Public sector joins digital identity export market as countries package DPI capacity

Countries across the Global South are no longer just building digital public infrastructure (DPI). They are beginning to export it. Governments that pioneered national digital identity systems are packaging implementation playbooks, governance frameworks, digital identity architectures, technical choices and institutional collaboration as an export commodity. Countries like Ethiopia, India and Pakistan are among those leading that charge in South-South digital cooperation, which now has a prominent place in the global digital transformation discourse.

This new form of international cooperation has soft power implications, but it also represents an economic opportunity for government bodies, potentially at the expense of technology providers offering system integration and consultation.

Ethiopia’s pathfinding role with Faydaverse

In Africa, Ethiopia is fronting efforts in this direction. With the recent launch of its identity company Faydaverse, the country has shown that nations building DPI can shift away from the traditional “top-down vendor dependency” approach to one that is horizontal and allows for peer-to-peer collaboration, the exchange of knowledge and innovation, Ethiopia’s National ID Program (NIDP) argues in an analysis.

Launched recently by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Faydaverse is designed to promote digital public infrastructure development beyond the country, and on a commercial basis, which makes it possible for Ethiopia to engage with several other countries to share expertise on its growing digital identity ecosystem.

“Faydaverse’s aim to play a leading role in forming international DPI partnerships is rooted in its own self-reliant engineering journey,” NIDP says.

Ethiopia launched the Fayda digital ID at scale only in 2023, but three years down the line, the project has grown to become one of the most important development components of the Horn of Africa country’s economy. As of this month, more than 50 million citizens have been enrolled for the digital ID, with NIDP projecting to have at least 70 million before this year runs out.

Thanks to this progress, many African countries have been rushing to share notes with Ethiopia in order to develop and fast-track their own DPI implementation. Zambia is one of the countries that have an engagement with Ethiopia to support the development of DPI. The partnership was hailed by the UNDP as a good example of South-South digital cooperation.

Benin is another. In August, a Beninese delegation was in Addis Ababa where they had discussions with NIDP officials, and also visited the MASOB digital government center to draw inspiration.

In April, Mozambique also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Ethiopia to tap from the latter’s rich experience in DPI implementation.

India Stack continues expansion

Beyond Africa, India is also one of the clearest examples of a DPI knowledge exporter. The India Stack has, in the last few years, been an inspiration to many African, Asian and even European countries, including Burundi and Sri Lanka.

In August, several delegations from African countries were in the country for a mission that lasted a fortnight, with the objective of tapping into the country’s DPI ecosystem fondly known as the India Stack. The trip took place within the framework of the UNDP’s Africa Accelerator for Digital Public Infrastructure (AA4DPI) programme.

Earlier this year, the Indian government disclosed that it had entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with 23 countries, (now 25), many of them in Africa, to cooperate on one or more components of the India Stack, amongst which is the Universal Payment Interface (UPI). This component of the Stack is in use in about eight countries around the world.

The India Stack is made up of the Aadhaar digital ID, which is the world’s biggest digital ID program; UPI, which serves as an instant payment infrastructure, as well as the DigiLocker data-sharing platform, which is an interoperable service that enables public entities to share and verify digital credentials.

Indian authorities say they expect the Stack to transform the country’s digital economy into a trillion-dollar one by the year 2030. Meanwhile, India is going beyond its DPI to also export AI as highlighted by discussions during the India DPI Summit in June.

Pakistan’s NADRA

Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) is also active in DPI knowledge export.

In the past 25 years, the country has not only put in place a solid foundation for digital ID in Pakistan which has more than 220 million people enrolled, it has also contributed enormously to supporting digital transformation implementations in foreign destinations.

The UNDP’s deputy country representative for Pakistan, Van Nguyen, says NADRA has evolved from an agency created in 2000 to modernize Pakistan’s national ID system into a provider of digital trust infrastructure and expertise that countries around the world now seek to emulate.

Somalia is one example of a country that has sought NADRA’s digital ID expertise. A delegation from Somalia’s National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) visited Islamabad this week to gather insights from Pakistan’s taxpayer identification system and the social protection initiative Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).

This has also been possible thanks to NADRA’s commercial arm, NADRA Technologies Limited (NTL), which is an entity with an international portfolio providing digital ID and e-government solutions across several countries. This is the same idea as Ethiopia’s Faydaverse.

Apart from Somalia, NADRA has also worked with Kenya in digital public infrastructure development.

As a growing number of governments around the world work towards launching digital identity and other elements of DPI, those that are further ahead in the process are building their experience, as well as evidence that their approach works. By offering the insight and experience they gain to agencies in other countries, public sector organizations are have expanded the supply pipeline for an important piece of the overall digital identity market.

Article Topics

digital ID infrastructure  |  digital public infrastructure  |  Ethiopia  |  FaydaVerse Digital Solutions Enterprise  |  India  |  NADRA Technologies Limited  |  Pakistan