Kenya, Ethiopia boost digital ID; Zimbabwe tackle digital risks
Three African countries are making significant strides in digital transformation. First, Kenya is partnering with France’s IN Groupe to establish a more reliable and secure digital ID infrastructure. Ethiopia is exploring the potential for its digital ID system to significantly enhance the nation’s GDP by 7%. Lastly, Zimbabwe is raising concerns about various cyber risks associated with increased digital payments and online transactions.
Kenya turns to IN Groupe for its national digital identity infrastructure
Kenya is collaborating with France’s IN Groupe to explore a national authentication platform to build trust in its digital identity program and allow citizens to access public and private services securely.
On August 20, the country’s ICT and Digital Economy Cabinet Secretary, William Kabogo, met with IN Groupe Vice President for Government Programs, Céline Gouveia, to discuss the digital ID project, and both sides agreed to continue with the technical and policy discussions toward a trusted, interoperable digital identity for Kenya.
“We underscored the importance of coordinated governance of Kenya’s digital public infrastructure. While Ministries and agencies will continue to manage their respective services, the Ministry of ICT and the Digital Economy should provide overarching coordination to ensure systems are interoperable, eliminate duplication and deliver greater value from technology investments,” Kabogo said on X. “A key priority is building public trust in digital identity and government digital services.”
IN Groupe has been involved in Africa’s digital identity market for many years now, as more countries seek vendors capable of delivering critical digital infrastructure.
Through Nexus, IN Groupe has supplied the PKI platform that Kenya’s ICT Authority selected to deploy a Government Certification Authority (GCA) for its National Public Key Infrastructure (NPKI) in 2023.
As Kenya accelerates its digital government push, officials said that a trusted authentication system is now central to the country’s strategy.
In 2023, the government created a new Directorate of eCitizen Services to help scale up its eCitizen platform—the country’s digital gateway for government services. Officials claimed that the platform now provides citizens with access to more than 20,000 government services, making public services more accessible to Kenyans.
Ethiopia says digital ID system to boost GDP by 7%
Elsewhere in Ethiopia, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said the country’s national digital identification system, commonly known as Fayda, has the potential to increase the country’s gross domestic product by 7%, international media network TV BRICS reported.
The digital ID system forms the basis of the country’s transition to digital technologies. The digital ID aligns with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals and the long-term development strategy of the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
The digital ID system combines both biometric and demographic data and assigns a unique identification number for each registered individual.
Since its roll-out in 2023, almost 50 million citizens have registered in the digital ID system. In addition, Fayda has been integrated into over 150 public and private institutions, and it is expected that this integration may reach its target of 115 million registered users by the 2027 – 2028 financial year.
Zimbabwe identifies cyber risks in digital payments
In other news, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)—the nation’s central bank—has identified issues in its digital payments ecosystem and recommended stronger cybersecurity controls.
In its mid-term monetary policy statement, RBZ Governor John Mushayavanhu said that cybersecurity breach incidents reported recently have “highlighted some vulnerabilities in third-party service providers, payment channels, and digital banking” ecosystems.
He added that “This reinforces the need for continuous strengthening of cyber controls, incident response and operational resilience across the sector.”
Following the governor’s statement, the central bank urges financial and mobile companies to ensure the timely and systematic exchange of cyber threat intelligence. It also asked banking institutions, mobile operators, and digital payment service providers to remove ghost, fictitious, and duplicate accounts to mitigate digital fraud and cybersecurity breaches.
Digital payment adoption in Zimbabwe remains low due to concerns about trust, reliability, and affordability. The RBZ’s mid-term monetary policy statement underscores this problem, noting that only 36% of deployed point-of-sale machines are active.
Additionally, Zimbabwe has roughly 6.8 million credit cards in circulation, alongside just over 586,605 people signed up for internet banking services, while the number of prepaid cards stands at 193,000, with the majority of them used for international e-commerce payments.
By comparison, African neighboring countries Nigeria and Kenya have more developed digital payment ecosystems.
Nigeria’s digital payment market is considerably broader. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) reported that over 5.6 billion NIBSS Instant Payment transactions were processed, worth N476.89 trillion ($354.05 billion), during the first half of 2024, while internet (web) transactions reached 11.6 billion, or N825.5 trillion ($612.52 billion).
As of December 2024, Kenya had 82.4 million registered mobile-money accounts and almost 12.9 million cardholders, highlighting that digital wallets and payments have become a major payment channel along with cards and traditional banking services.
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