About
The ID4Africa
Movement
Founded in 2014, ID4Africa is the only Pan-African Movement that helps African nations build strategic capacity needed for developing robust and responsible identity ecosystems in the service of development and humanitarian action.
Our Vision
Identity for all in Africa for social justice and socio-economic development.
Our Mission
To deliver trustworthy knowledge that helps the public sector in Africa build strategic capacity and make informed decisions on their journeys of digital transformation and socio-economic development.
The Inalienable Right
to a proof of legal identity (consistent with SDG 16.9) is a pillar for social justice.
Our Guiding Principles
Proof of identity
especially in digital form—is essential for inclusive access to services and for the growth of digital economies for the benefit of all.
Government Responsibilities
Facilitate access to a proof of legal identity for everyone on its territory. Guarantee that legal frameworks and regulations are in place to ensure that identity systems are used responsibly, and that individual privacy is respected, and personal data is protected against abuse. Ensure sovereignty of the identity ecosystem and facilitate its role as the foundation of digital public infrastructure, upon which government practices and public and private services can be built.
Our Goals
We believe governments need trustworthy knowledge to build the strategic capacity required to fulfil their responsibilities relative to the provision of identity-for-all. This knowledge should be timely and sufficient in depth to enable government agencies to design, build, launch, maintain, and grow responsible identity ecosystems that support foundational as well as functional identification needs in their countries. In support of our vision and our mission, the Movement is driven by the following goals:
1. Produce and disseminate, crowd-sourced trustworthy content about inclusive and responsible identity policies, best practices, experiences and ID4D.
2. Publish this content as digital public goods for the benefit of all worldwide.
3. Be responsive to the specific African stakeholders’ needs for making informed decisions.
4. Ensure knowledge informs and is informed by an open dialogue that includes voices from all stakeholders—government, private sector, development agencies and civil society.
5. Ensure produced content advances the inclusion and the empowerment of traditionally marginalized and vulnerable groups.
6. Facilitate access by women to this body of KNOWLEDGE and advocate for expanding their role in the decision-making process in government.
7. Grow the ID4D community worldwide and maintain an active peer-to-peer expert network to provide bespoke advice and experience sharing around identity system developments.
8. Provide, on as needed basis, country specific counsel to governments to help them leverage digital identity and DPI for digital transformation of service delivery and governance.
9. Keep African governments informed about the range of innovations and solutions available for their identification and digital transformation needs.
10. Promote standards for inoperability to allow for achieving technology and vendor neutrality, and identify practices that help governments attain solution sovereignty, and an open and competitive marketplace for the benefit of the people of Africa.
Our Programs
The Movement’s activities are planned around an annual campaign cycle, which runs from the fiscal period January 1 to December 31. Each cycle involves engaging the ID4Africa Community through research and situation analysis in order to update the understanding of Africa’s priorities and challenges in identity matters. This informs the Movement’s strategy and guides the mix of activities that will constitute the annual campaign.
ID4Africa Programs are significantly valued as a unique experience for participants who join with the objective to exchange information, report on their annual progress, discuss challenges, evaluate solutions and define their priorities going forward.
In support of the mission, ID4Africa has built and institutionalized 3 highly successful programs:
