Page 66 - The Digital Financial Services (DFS) Ecosystem

ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services
Ecosystem

age for registration (10 programs), followed by birth and age 16 (eight programs each) . Some governments are
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developing comprehensive identity management system that manage peoples’ identities from birth to death
(Bennett & Lyon, 2008). In several cases, however, the age of enrollment and the age for the issuance of physical
credentials are different. In Bangladesh, for example, a national identification number is issued to every child at
birth, and this number remains through his or her life and is associated with the NID card issued at the age of
15 (Chowdhury, 2015b). Children in Pakistan are required to register with National Database and Registration
Authority (NADRA) within a month of birth, although they are not eligible to acquire a Computerized National
Identity Card (CNIC) or Smart National Identity Card (SNIC) until they are 18 years old (Khan, 2012). Table 2
presents the target populations and target registration age of the 48 national ID programs.

3.4 Coverage of Target Population

The national identity programs we review also vary widely in their coverage of the target population. Figure
5 provides an overview of the coverage rates (also summarized in the last column of Table 2). We are able
to uncover evidence of coverage rates for 20 of 48 programs. Among the national identity programs that are
active—meaning either they have completed their initial rollouts, are actively enrolling, or are operational and
in use—the level of coverage ranges from eight percent of the target population for the National Electronic
Identity Cards (eID) in Nigeria to 99 percent for both the Karte Melli program in Iran and the NSIS program in
Uganda.

Figure 5 – Coverage Rates of ID Programs

Other ID programs that have high levels of coverage among their target population include Pakistan’s
National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) (98% – see Section 4.5 for detail on NADRA’s extensive
registration efforts), the Registro Nacional de Identificacion y Estado Civil (RENIEC) program in Peru (98%), the
e-KTP program in Indonesia (97%), the Elector’s Card program in the Democratic Republic of Congo (91%),
the National Identification Number (NINA) card program in Mali (88%), the Continuous Voter Registration in
Zambia (79%), and India’s Aadhaar program (67%). The ID programs that have the lowest level of coverage
are the ID card programs in Nigeria (8%), Tanzania (24%), and Angola (25%).

We do not observe any particular factors that appear to be associated with coverage levels. Theoretically, older
program would have had more time to increase their coverage rate, but we find no association between year
of launch and coverage. For instance, the NSIS program in Uganda has a 99 percent coverage rate despite

5 Figure 10 in the section on linkages with health services further illustrates the breakdown of target registration age among these
programs.

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