An interoperable cross boarder ID

For most workers in the informal economy, the lack of social protection is a challenge not only in their daily struggles to make ends meet but in their aspirations to obtain decent work, rights and dignity. For the societies in which they live, the lack of social protection coverage undermines inclusive growth, weakens social justice and undermines the realization of human rights.

The answer is an interoperable unique ID number linked with bank accounts and mobile money payment systems through which identities can be authenticated easily- reaching even the most excluded residents and those least likely to possess an official identity e.g. women, migrants, children and all those living in hard-to-reach areas to drive and facilitate people's socioeconomic development through a direct access to vital services such as an identity, healthcare, education, savings, insurance, credit, remittances, and a myriad of government subsidies with ease.

Globally, one billion people lack basic proof of ID, and as many as half of the world’s population lacks IDs, with only 55% of women being able to prove their identity compared to 70% of men in low-income countries. 40% of Sub-Saharan Africa —approximately 502 million people–lack official proof of identification and, consequently, face significant barriers to accessing critical social safety net services. Reciprocally, governments also struggle to authenticate and deliver services to the unregistered unidentified and the last mile rural dwellers (World Bank).

In most West African countries, Informal workers’ lack of social protection is usually associated with their lack of coverage through contributory mechanisms (social insurance and other contributory schemes). A key challenge facing policy makers is how to support workers and households that experience employment and income shocks. Targeting public support based on income requires verifiable information on employment and income which is typically only available for workers in the formal sector. The lack of such information for informal workers therefore restricts the ability of governments to effectively target resources to affected majority of the population households of the poorest income groups, the last-mile, rural populations and those least able to deal with short-term income shocks

An inclusive interoperable foundational ID number linked with a beneficiary's bank account or mobile money account number can provide government-to-person (G2P) payments, and biometrically identify and authenticate residents that are deemed to be eligible for government subsidies. This system has capacity to benefit both the governments by saving money wasted through leakages during direct benefit transfers and the extension of social safety net services to workers in the informal economy especially those in agricultural, construction, domestic services, self-employed workers/own-account workers, in micro and small enterprises and migrants. It offers new levers to governments in low-income developing countries to implement a wide range of policies and programs, to increase effectiveness and accountability, and also to include many who have been effectively shut out whether through lack of recognition, high transactions costs, or the inability to ensure that payments or other services are delivered accurately, to the right person, and at the right time.  

The platform also empowers mobile network operators and other private sector organizations to leverage the unique ID number to provide a range of value-adding services in a highly cost-effective way–reducing the cost of the Know-Your- Customer (KYC) process and significantly lowering the overall cost of customer acquisition.

This Solution proposes an robust and inclusive foundational ID system that leverages a unique, regionally interoperable ID number to enable and advance identification for all by linking financial institutions and mobile money and other social information systems to facilitate delivery of inclusive services that are not based on a standard employment contract, and yet are flexible across borders e.g. financial services, social insurance healthcare, education, humanitarian assistance, government-to-person and P2G payments for the missing middle regardless of origin or current location–thus serving as a key enabler for eradicating poverty and for achieving a broad range of development outcomes.

Voter cards are only issued every five years, duplication of data and changes to individual information are not often reflected, the authenticity of a Passport is not always given and bribing an official or using fraudulent identity documents during application exists, Permanent Account Numbers (PANs) facilitate tax payments but cards are highly susceptible to fraud for absence of physical verification of the documents submitted during application, and no deletion of IDs takes place.

In all those forms of identification, there is exclusion for people without access to any form of official identity, no interoperability since documents are not linked to identity databases, there are inefficiencies due to duplication of efforts and increase in cost of authentication; and there is a lack of robustness leading to outdated documents or inaccurate information.  

In order to be inclusive, identity programmes must account for low-income and vulnerable populations without access to documents that can prove their identity, address or citizenship;

This Solution-Inclusive by design deploys technical standards for foundational IDs such as dimensional barcodes and an integration of a unique identity number and a digital platform through which identities can be authenticated anytime, anywhere and is designed to reach even the most excluded residents and those least likely to possess an official identity- enabling governments and donors to easily and effectively delivery subsidies and other social safety nets with ease through beneficiaries’ linked bank accounts and/or mobile money accounts, and it also plays a key role in the migration to a cashless economy.

According to the World Bank report, When it comes to ID systems, India's Aadhaar initiative sets a high bar for the rest of the world.

In 2014, the Prime Minister took a vital step in driving identity authentication and account opening for vulnerable groups, missing middle and unbanked residents. A vital step was linking PMJDY with Aadhaar (unique identity number). In the years leading up to the launch of the scheme, the central bank updated its KYC requirements to allow Aadhaar to be used as both a proof of identity and address, and in 2015 banks were permitted to use Aadhaar for e-KYC. As a biometric-verified identity that is digital and verifiable online, Aadhaar offered banks and regulators a highly accurate and secure form of ID.

Crucially, online authentication makes customer on-boarding faster, easier and more efficient, significantly reducing the cost to banks and allowing them achieve higher scale in areas where other identity documents are scarce.

For customers, Aadhaar provided a portable and paperless identity that could be verified anywhere in India, including by ‘business correspondents’ (BCs) that banks increasingly use in rural areas to facilitate low-value transactions on their behalf.

Biometric authentication is also more inclusive, as it eliminates the need for customers to maintain hard copies of their identity documents or remember account details, personal PINs or passwords.

By January, 2015; four days to the account opening deadline, over 125 million accounts had been opened: 75 million in rural areas, and over 50 million in urban areas.

To expand the potential reach of social safety nets, we shall establish citizen foundational ID system and integrate them with public socio-economic information databases and improved benefit delivery mechanisms by building on the biometric unique digital ID number and redistribution infrastructure designed for and capable of universal reach shall be setup and invest in integrating the unique ID numbers with other socio-economic databases linked to enhanced mobile communications and financial access with the aim of improving administrative and targeting performance and program delivery with three key pillars:

-Reliable identification (ID) system. This will be a biometric identification system which will be rolled out to providing each resident with unique identification number using their demographic data and biometric information (fingerprint and iris scan).

-Financial inclusion. This financial inclusion program will commence in 2021 to allow beneficiaries open up a free bank account and mobile money accounts through partnership with banks and Mobile Network Providers.

-QR code/Pins/Mobile network. Covering more than 10milion phones with a growing share of smartphones, feature phones and internet-enabled devices. This will serve as an effective service delivery platform especially in rural areas.  

From the outset, these three pillars will be integrated­– allowing government to improve the targeting and delivery of its policies. Unique identity number will be linked with beneficiary databases for public services and subsidies, as well as with tax databases to enable customers and banks, MNOs to fulfill know-your-customer (KYC) norms necessary to obtain a bank account or a mobile SIM card, thus being linked automatically. This in turn will support the unique identity number-based reforms of social programs—such as transformation of subsidies into a direct cash transfer and further encourage people to register and open formal bank accounts.

The World Bank has already laid the groundwork for a regional, foundational ID in West Africa under ECOWAS. To support such a system, we shall seek for buy-in from national governments in the West African region on the necessity of implementing a Direct Transfer of benefits using our solution mode.

The solution’s use of an integration of unique identity number approach with other beneficiary databases like bank accounts and mobile money payment systems is tailored to conditions of marginalized groups in urban and rural areas. It makes it easy for governments to allow mobile money payment providers’ have licenses that can allow them operate their own banking services even in remote areas and by acting as payment banks–offering digital financial services (Direct benefit transfer services, savings, withdraws, and borrowing) to millions of previously underserved residents.

The solution would borrow from recent CGAP research on ways to extend networks of mobile-money agents to “the last mile” in hard-to-reach locales. By so doing, the platform would reach more of  the poor, involve more women, and engage digitally or financially illiterate via a combination of agents’ “tech” and “touch”.

Our proposed regional framework of systems that collaborate with other central banks and MNOs also addresses two other marginalized and vulnerable groups:  (1) informal-sector migrant workers that have to cross national borders in their work and (2) the internally displaced, refugees, and stateless persons, who must move across local boundaries in response to slow-onset catastrophes such as climate change and rapid-onset ones of war, persecution, and pandemics.

The platform is user-friendly by design to simplify the process of Identification of beneficiary, transfer to the beneficiary and providing access to beneficiary.

The rapid, widespread, and low-cost roll-out of other successful digital authentication systems have shown what user-friendly technology can do—scannable or photographed QR codes for authenticating transaction to handheld mini-ATMs, similar to point-of-sale (POS) devices, for dispensing and receiving digital-cash payments. Likewise, networks of banks and mobile agents help make a system user friendly by explaining its rationale to locals who know and respect their local agents and who have already interacted with them—for mobile money and other services. 

The platform is easy and effective to implement and can be interoperable within the West Africa Unique Identification for Regional Integration and Inclusion (WURI) program allowing Universal access to well-functioning ID, connectivity, and financial inclusion in efforts to moving citizen–government interactions that allow government to ‘transfer benefits in a leakage-proof, well-targeted and cashless manner.

Social protection service providers find it easy to effectively deliver their services facilitated by the fact that all the requirements needed for identification of a beneficiary are all embedded in a beneficiary’s unique identification number- thus saving them the hustle and costs on both ends of the parties.

After they have biometrically identified and authenticated residents that are deemed to be eligible for services, a linking with the beneficiaries’ bank account/mobile money payment number can be easy and effective in ensuring that these benefits are able to reach beneficiaries quickly and efficiently. 

The system uses open APIs provided for integration with other systems like the West Africa Unique Identification to meet the needs of the various users making it easy and effective to interoperable be linked with other beneficiary databases for public services and subsidies, and with tax databases to enable customers, mobile network operators and banks to fulfill know-your-customer (KYC) norms necessary to obtain a bank account or a mobile SIM card, thus being linked automatically to new bank accounts and mobile connections- thus enhancing mobile communications and financial access with the aim of improving administrative and targeting performance and program delivery.

Most technologists, particularly in the social sector, recognize the need for open standards and backward compatibility with existing technologies. Even for-profit platforms rely on these basic tenets. Our non-profit solution will be no different.

The foundational unique ID numbers are used to biometrically identify and authenticate disadvantaged citizens (but not to determine eligibility), while integrated/linked beneficiary bank accounts and mobile money payment systems and devices are used to access funds transferred.

Mobile providers can also be given licenses to operate their own banking services through ‘payment bank licensing allowing beneficiaries to access and register simcards, savings, withdraws, and borrowing among other benefits.

This in turn supports unique ID number-based reforms of social protection programs such as transformation of subsidies into a direct cash transfer deposited on linked bank accounts and further encourage people to register and open formal bank accounts.

To support this kind of system,we deploy the use of interoperable Quick Response (QR) codes for functionality and ease of use. Such QR codes can function without access to the mobile Internet, require only static QR stickers to start payments, and work with a phone and camera along with USSD. Merchants using QR codes transact more times than those relying on USSD or Near-Field Communication (NFC). China, India, and Indonesia use QR codes extensively.  Since these codes are simply point and scan or photographed, they do not require literacy or numeracy to function properly. Likewise, 2G and 3G feature phones are still prevalent in West Africa due to their low cost and because of rural areas’ intermittent network coverage that cannot yet sustain high-bandwidth traffic.

The solution shall also strongly focus on use of mobile ATM Service vans especially in areas where physical branches cannot be established. This results in low transaction cost, minimum time for processing and provide speedy service to the beneficiary.

An increasing number of mobile-money providers, such as MTN’s MoMo in West Africa use open application program interfaces (APIs) to integrate with an average of 17 government agencies (GSMA), providing what are known as “bulk disbursements” to recipients’ mobile-money accounts via G2P payments or from development partners to beneficiaries.

People having the unique ID number need not produce any other document for opening account or access to simcard-the biometric identification of the beneficiary is done through the ID number.

Current Number of beneficiaries = 0

Beneficiaries in one Year = 2,000,000 - 5,000,000

Beneficiaries in 5 Years = 20,000,000 - 50,000,000

Within the next year, our goal is to have buy-in from West Africa’s national governments and development partners on the appropriateness of our approach, with commitments of funding commensurate with our role. Within five years, if we achieve the first year’s goal, we would hope to have a functioning foundational ID system, interoperable across the region, and begin having meaningful impact on the poor and near poor via the functional savings and cash-payment services that the foundational ID system would enable.

That will then enable us embark on making sure the following is accomplished.

• Access to ID and building trust  – Robust ID for all with strong authentication ecosystem, Free, easy enrollment with minimum possible data requirements
• Access to mobile and finance – Simplify KYC documentation around ID and move to risk-based KYC and e-KYC to cut onboarding costs.
• Access to mobile – Encourage universal access to at least 2G, Cross-subsidize coverage through proceeds and conditions of spectrum auctions.
• Access to finance, and trust – Allow nonbanks (notably MNOs but also other businesses) to offer payment services as a low-cost way to extend financial access to poor customers.
• Access to mobile and finance – Encourage shared infrastructure–cell towers, perhaps through tower campaigns–and agents.
• Value and convenience of finance – At an appropriate stage of market development, encourage payments interoperability
• Accountability and access to finance – G2P payments through common platform able to pay to any general-purpose financial or mobile account.

-The most immediate barrier for the next year is the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, but such a crisis also presents an opportunity:  to change mindsets on the need for universal basic incomes, albeit initially on a temporary basis, and to accelerate the digitalization of economies in an inclusive manner for all.

-Legal, regulatory, and market barriers will require cooperation among the ECOWAS states to harmonize laws, regulations, and financial markets, or where necessary, to accept and work around existing differences in the policy framework. Participating member nations will also need to each recognize the need for a access to basic social safety nets as well as our proposed approach for creating a regional, foundational ID via databases linked through distributed ledgers and housed as individual nodes at each central bank, with an additional node at the oversight and regulating organization, ECOWAS.

-Each nation will also have to commit to paying subsidies for all identified poor and near poor who happen to reside in their countries, regardless of original nationality. In recent years there have been as many as three million internally displaced and refugees in the ECOWAS region, with the highest population of stateless persons in Niger. This payment requirement will, therefore, put an added burden on Niger. Nevertheless, many countries in the region, including Niger, have recently committed to comprehensive measures to address statelessness within their borders (UNHCR).

-Insufficiency inflow of funds to support the continuation of the project from start to scale is likely to pose a bigger challenge.

The success of the project resides in expansion of banking services, adoption of technology, increase in accounts usage by the beneficiary, seeding of beneficiaries' payment accounts etc.

Technology can work as a catalyst in fostering inclusion but several remote regions face issues of poor connectivity, digital illiteracy, resistance in technology adoption etc. To cope with these issues, other channels like eKYC, Mobile/Internet Banking, Debit cards, Micro ATMs or Use of ATM Van in the rural areas where people travel miles to reach the bank will not only save time but also develop a habit to use the ATM cards should be encouraged along with educating and making people understand the benefits.

Our main resource is our human labor and experience in advocacy for technology-based improvements to policy and regulatory environments. Part of advocacy involves bringing together coalitions of disparate parties. Due to current circumstances, much, if not all, of this advocacy will need to occur remotely rather than in person.

As the main barriers at the initial stage of the project are on a national or regional level, we will need to rely on multilateral and global organizations such as the World Bank that have the clout to encourage those types of changes. Behind the scenes, we would provide advice and suggestions to the World Bank and others for their approaches to advocacy and on issues of technical considerations.

N/A

We are just a team of entrepreneurs who thought we would bring our innovative thinking to the challenges that this competition highlights.

We are a team of five members from different parts of the country coming together to share our idea with the world.

We are basically a team of passionate entrepreneurs who seek to plat a vital role in designing robust and interoperable yet inclusive solutions that target the lives of those mainly and previously excluded.

Our primary delegate Joseph Mulabbi through his leadership at RefuConnect won the 2019 Giz and African Union Humanitarian Innovation Challenge, and grant winner @Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program 2018  He is an entrepreneur, advocate for social empowerment, business coach and consultant. He is founder/Director of WeKonnect platform that connects refugees to relevant information and services in Uganda, founder @ExpertBoda a transport company, and Youth Contact Association working to transform and empower African youth through social economic initiatives.

As an advocate for social empowerment, he strongly supports innovative mindset and entrepreneurial growth and development initiatives that elevate people and communities and has experience in developing solutions for health, youth participatory skills empowerment, community engagement solutions, awareness and sensitization among many other projects that promote community engagement and urge positive participation to elevate the status of both young and old.

Together, we’re a team of experienced team builders with high integrity and excellence combined with outstanding expertise in humanitarian services, and regional integration services.

This being an idea we haven't partnered with any organization but upon winning this challenge we shall seek to work with a range of different organizations both in the public and private sectors including those not limited to governments, financial institutions, mobile network providers, telecommunications networks etc.

Our business model is precise and provides the much need help needed by the target customers.The value propositions include a foundational ID to enable them to receive social benefits, travel, and work more easily, have more money through direct benefit transfers, G2P payments etc without barriers on its use or conditions for earning it; and access to a available setup savings plan that can reward them for both short- and long-term saving through matching contributions that allow flexible use of the savings based on their needs.

For the intermediate customers of national governments and development partners is advice on conducive policies, regulations, and procedures for achieving their aims of more equitable societies that benefit the poor and near poor while achieving better regional integration and flexibility to respond to external shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

Most, if not all, governments and their partners are probably already convinced of the need for foundational IDs and the advantages of digital ones. The World Bank’s West Africa Unique Identification for Regional Integration and Inclusion (WURI) program has already achieved acceptance for a regional approach, as shown by, for example, the regional central bank’s progress on financial interoperability. We will show to governments and their partners that, rather than create dependencies, a DBT will be a more efficient and effective means of helping people than current systems in place.

This project not being an income-generating venture, our revenue shall be generated through grants, donations, and government support through the licensing of our IP.

Our path to financial sustainability will depend on sustained grants and in-kind donations of expertise from knowledgeable development partners that have been involved in areas of foundational IDs and functional services such as mobile money to enhance financial inclusion.

Potential donors or contributors include the World Bank, the UNHCR, UNDP, UNICEF, the African Development Bank, the Gates Foundation, the GSMA, Global Innovation Fund, MTN, Orange, Airtel, and well-funded tech firms planning to develop e-commerce in less developed and rural areas of Africa such as Jumia, the Sub-Saharan Africa’s version of Amazon, and Facebook with aspirations for its Libra mobile-money wallet, now called Novi.

Another revenue streams that will be up for debate shall be the sell of IP and consultation services to governments that may want to develop or run similar projects in their respective economies.

As noted before, we are a team of entrepreneurs who just came together to address the call for innovative projects by the Mission Billion challenge.

We have therefore not taken any steps in gathering revenue for this project being that it is still at the idea stage.

Funds for this solution would be in the form of grants and in-kind donations from organizations with expertise in the respective areas of the project. To justify continued expenditure of our time, we would hope to raise the money as soon as possible, beginning with seed funding from this World Bank competition, the Mission Billion Challenge.

Then we would also go ahead to lobby for further funding in terms of grants and donations in the amounts of $100,000, $200,000, $500,000 etc.

Our current financial need would fall between $100,0000-$200,000 based estimates for what we intend to do in bringing this idea to a working prototype/MVP.

The prize will provide credibility as to the merit of our proposed framework for a regional, foundational ID model. A seal of approval from the World Bank, as cornerstone investor, i.e. funder, would act as the catalyst for follow-on funding and entrée in advocating for our ideas and approach to governments, development partners, and implementing organizations.

Also winning the Mission Billion Challenge will be simply mind blowing, it will validate the recognition and belief in our vision and open new doors for partnerships, technology and call to action for the entire project. We are going to work hard to make our vision come true and we believe this award is one of the most important steps for this accomplishment.

The funding will help us kick start the idea development stage and set the platform needed to dive into a fully fledged platform that will transform and give hope to millions of lives especially those that fall under the missing middle.

In the initial stage, the key area of need will be obtaining buy-in from governments, donors, and potential private-sector partners operating in the West African region. Exposure from the Mission Billion Challenge and introductions from the World Bank’s Identification for Development (ID4D) department to relevant contacts will be of great help for that.

Subsequently, prototyping the foundational unique ID number linked with West African central banks’ ID databases and a Mobile Network Operators as well as other payment systems will require assistance, as will the distribution and marketing of these services to end beneficiaries.

We shall seek partnership with the immediate Niger government where we hope to prototype the project from for purposes of have a leveled ground with a conducive environment to help us carry out the activities of the project. We shall seek partnership with India's  UIDAI due to their wealth of expertise from 10+ years of testing, administering, and refining Aadhaar, UIDAI would be an excellent partner.

We shall so lookfoward to partnering with the World Bank's https://id4d.worldbank.org/ https://id4d.worldbank.org/ as well as the Google Developers Experts given their exposure, experience and expertise in supporting, developing and managing related projects.

We shall then go ahead to seek partnership with Banks and other financial institutions in the land as well as telecommunication companies like MTN, ORANGE, AIRTEL and other available telecom companies being that they will be at the fore front of implementing the mobile money transfer services to beneficiaries.