Page 64 - The Digital Financial Services (DFS) Ecosystem

ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services
Ecosystem

enrolling new participants. We define “operational and in use” as programs that have fully scaled up and
only enroll newly eligible individuals. Conversely, by “operational and in use / actively enrolling,” we refer to
programs which have completed at least their initial or pilot phase of enrollment and issued ID credentials to
a portion of the target population, but have yet to be fully scaled up. This implementation stage is common in
countries where enrollment is designed to take place in phases by age or by region. Bangladesh, for instance,
extended eligibility for the NID cards to 15-17 year olds in 2015 after the cards were introduced in 2008 for
all people 18 years old and above, and is still actively enrolling this newly eligible population (Chowdhury,
2015b). IDPoor in Cambodia partially or fully registered poor households in five provinces, and is continuously
expanding the coverage area as resources become available (Cambodia Ministry of Planning, n.d.).

Finally, three national ID programs are stalled. Successful implementation of national identity programs
requires sustained popular and political support as well as intergovernmental cooperation (Gelb & Clark, 2013).
Political and social instability is affecting successful implementation of the e-tazkira in Afghanistan and the ID
card in Ukraine, and both programs are now considered stalled. One account in Afghanistan suggests that a
decision not to place “ethnicity” on the physical ID card invoked anger from minority groups who perceived that
the Pashtun majority was trying to avoid “counting” them in population estimates used to determine political
representation. Violence and collapsing political support have contributed to the stalled implementation of the
program (Bezhan, 2013). The government of Ukraine had announced the introduction of biometric ID cards
in both 2012 (Mayhew, 2012) and 2015 (Censor.Net, 2015), however, we find no evidence of implementation
plans. Technical challenges can also stall program implementation, especially ones that involve the use of
electronic components and biometric technology. The adoption of the digital biometric ID card in Algeria has
been delayed due to difficulties providing logistical and equipment services (Belamri, 2015).

The implementation status of these programs is often related to the years when the programs were initiated.
The programs that are currently operational and in use are generally older, often based on physical credentials
issued many years ago, including as far back as 1964 (Kenya, Zambia). Uganda’s National Security Information
System (NSIS), launched in 2014, is the newest program that is currently operational and in use. Five of the six
planned and actively enrolling initiatives were introduced recently, ranging from 2007 to 2015.

Many countries already have existing national identity programs in place but have replaced or are replacing
them with the next generation of national ID cards that contain electronic and/or biometric components.
For example, China’s first generation of ID card was introduced in 1985; its second generation card was
implemented in 2004 and embedded with a microchip using RFID technology (Chen, 2003; Immigration and
Refugee Board of Canada, 2007). In 2015, Egypt’s government signed an agreement with MasterCard to
link citizens’ national IDs to an existing national mobile money platform (Security Document World, 2015).
Vietnam’s People’s Identity Cards program was introduced in 1999 (Ministry of Justice's Portal, the Government
of Vietnam, n.d.). While no information can be found on when the new program will be implemented, the
available evidence indicates that the goal of this program is to simplify personal papers by replacing the current
IDs and household registers (Tuoi Tre News, 2014). Vietnam, Bangladesh, Ecuador, Ghana, Iran, Kenya, and Sri
Lanka are all planning to undergo, or are currently undergoing, a transition to a next-generation ID system.
Figure 4 illustrates national ID programs’ stage of implementation by region. All regions have programs that
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are operational and in use, and the majority of the programs we review are located in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The three planned programs are split among South Asia, South East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, but all three
programs that are in the active enrollment stage are located in Sub-Saharan Africa. The concentration of newer
programs in Sub-Saharan Africa may be due to this region’s leapfrogging ability enabled by new electronic and
biometric technology (World Bank, 2015).

4 “EUR” indicates Europe, “LAC” indicates Latin American and the Caribbean, “MENA” indicates the Middle East and North Africa,
“SA” indicates South Asia, “SEA” indicates Southeast Asia, and “SSA” indicates Sub-Saharan Africa.

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