By Prince Osuagwu

The World Bank has approved Nigeria’s digital identity ecosystem project along with five others, aimed at assisting the country to empower citizens, especially marginalised groups, to access welfare-enhancing services.

The National Digital Identity Ecosystem Project, approved recently in Washington DC, United States, is focused on enhancing the national Identity system’s legal and technical safeguards to protect personal data and privacy.

The World Bank approved the six projects to support Nigeria’s development priorities, focused on improving immunisation, providing an enabling business environment for private sector, expanding the digital economy to promote job creation and increase capacity of public and private sector on governance, social and environmental safeguards.

World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri, said, the World Bank is ramping up its support to Nigeria in its efforts to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.

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Among the projects approved in the “programme of support in fiscal year 2020” is the Nigeria Digital Identification for Development Project.

World Bank explained that the Project “will support the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, to increase the number of persons who have  National Identification Number, NIN,  to about 150 million in the next couple of years.”

Other projects approved include: Immunisation Plus and Malaria Progress by Accelerating Coverage and Transforming Services, IMPACT, will strengthen health systems to deliver effective primary health care and improve immunisation, malaria control, and child and maternal health in selected states. The project is financed under concessional terms through an IDA credit of $650 million.

Nigeria Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project will upgrade rural roads; improve connectivity and access to local markets and agrobusiness services in 13 states among others.

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