Chairman, Heirs Holdings and Founder, The Tony Elumelu Foundation, Tony O. Elumelu will join Jim Yong Kim, President, World Bank Group and Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn CEO at the opening debate of the ‘Digital Economy for Africa’ Forum in Washington, D.C organised by the World Bank Group.
The event, which will hold on April 19, 2018, at the World Bank Group Main complex, will also serve to launch the World Bank Group’s Digital Economy for Africa initiative in collaboration with the IFC as an important effort to realise Africa’s digital potential.
Follow Heirs Holdings on social media to join the real-time conversation.
What is digital identification?
Lack of personal official identification (ID) prevents people from fully exercising their rights and isolates them socially and economically — voting, legal action, receipt of government benefits, banking, and borrowing are all virtually closed off. The widespread lack of ID in developing countries is a critical stumbling block to national growth.
Digital IDs, combined with the already extensive use of mobile devices in the developing world, offers a transformative solution to the problem — a simple means for capturing personal ID that can reach far more people, as well as and new, more efficient ways for government and business to reach and serve the population.
What is the World Bank’s role?
The Digital IDs for Development program — led by the ICT group — is under the broader umbrella of the World-Bank wide Identification for Development (ID4D) initiative. We see Digital IDs as an enabler and a platform for delivering the services provided by all sectors involved in the ID4D agenda (thus we are sector-agnostic). It leverages digital identities (IDs) as part of a unified system to better deliver services and benefits to people, especially the poor and the disadvantaged. The World Bank envisions the scope of its Digital IDs for Development program as follows:
- Finance Digital ID initiatives in identified countries to support the delivery of sector-specific programs — including financial services, social protection, and health care — in ways that conform to an overall standards-based architecture;
- Establish policies to secure personal data and ensure data privacy and promote the use of open and interoperable technology; and
- Catalyze a global network of digital ID experts to assist countries and help them build capacity in designing, deploying, monitoring, and maintaining digital ID systems.
