FG’s National Identity Project, Others Get World Bank Nod

The World Bank has approved Nigeria’s digital identity ecosystem project along with five others, aimed at assisting the country to empower citizens, especially marginalised groups, to access welfare-enhancing services.

The National Digital Identity Ecosystem Project is focused on enhancing the national Identity system’s legal and technical safeguards to protect personal data and privacy.

The World Bank approved the six projects to support Nigeria’s development priorities focused on improving immunisation, providing an enabling business environment for private sector, expanding the digital economy to promote job creation and increasing capacity of public and private sector on governance, social and environmental safeguards.

Shubham Chaudhuri, World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, said, “The World Bank is ramping up its support to Nigeria in its efforts to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.

“These projects are focused on delivering better services to Nigerian citizens. This means ensuring that children are immunised and sleep under mosquito net, improving rural mobility with better roads and providing citizens with a Unique Identification Number to be able to better target social safety nets’’.

Among the projects approved in the “programme of support in fiscal year 2020” is the Nigeria Digital Identification for Development Project.

A statement by the World Bank explained that the Project “will support the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to increase the number of persons who have a National Identification Number (NIN) reaching about 150 million in the next couple of years.”

According to the World Bank Statement, “this will enable people in Nigeria, especially marginalised groups, to access welfare-enhancing services. The project will also enhance the ID system’s legal and technical safeguards to protect personal data and privacy.

“This is financed through an International Development Association (IDA) credit of US$115 million and co-financing of US$100 million from the French Agency for Development and US$215 million from the European Investment Bank,” the statement added.