The Integrated Smart Identification Cards (e-ID) will be rolled out in July, according to Pascal Nyamulinda, the director-general of the National Identification Agency (NIDA).

Nyamulinda said this, yesterday, at the ID4Africa conference in Kigali while giving a presentation about Rwanda’s vision and roadmap for integrating civil registration with identity documents.

The three-day meeting is the Second Annual Government Meeting of the ID4Africa Movement and it has brought together over 600 delegates from African countries and beyond.

According to Nyamulinda, the ID will be a java card with an inbuilt 64 kilobyte chip able to contain health insurance and driving licence, among other needful documents, making users able to access various services by the use of a single card.

This is part of the Government efforts to integrate different public and private institutions with the national ID system.

While opening the meeting, Francis Kaboneka, the minister for local government, said the identification systems of African countries will keep improving to cover various aspects.

"With the commitment of the governments, development agencies, IT solution providers and domain experts, Africa will run from the old civil and identification systems to implement modern IT schemes and invented applications such as the use of identity in social protection, healthcare, mobile payments,” said Kaboneka.

Rwanda has made significant strides in its identity ecosystem.

Among these, a national population register covering over 95 per cent of the population is in place, 2.3 to 2.5 million households (the entire population) are registered in the unified social stratification register (Ubudehe), online identity verification services are already in place, and the cost of the mandatory NID are the lowest in Africa (under 1 dollar).

Kaboneka said registration and identification of the citizens empowers them to exercise their rights and to access services.

He added that it is in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, specifically goal 6.9, which calls on each nation to provide legal identity for all, including birth certificate and other civil registration services, by 2030.

The first day of the forum looked at the role of identification systems in development, challenges faced and solutions featuring presentations from experts from different international organisations.

Today, the forum will, among other issues, focus on the significance of creating a single identity management policy covering both civil registration and national identification, building trust in the ID issuance process and preventing forgery, protecting legal rights and privacy of personal information in ID systems.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw