Identity enrollment: World bank says NIMC on track with 70% NIN target
A new report by the World Bank has rate the performance of the Nigeria Identity for National Development (ID4D) as satisfactory, stating that the Nigeria Identity Management Commission (NIMC) is making progress.
The ID4D project, which commenced in 2019, is being financed through an International Development Association (IDA) credit of US$115 million and co-financing of US$100 million from the French Agency for Development and US$215 million from the European Investment Bank.
According to the World Bank, which facilitated the loans and monitored the project, as of April 30, 2023, a total of $35.6 million had been disbursed for the implementation of the project.
The bank said the objective of the Digital Identification for Development Project for Nigeria is to increase the number of persons with a national ID number, issued by a robust and inclusive foundational Identification (ID) system, that facilitates their access to services.
Under the project, NIMC is expected to have issued the National Identification Number (NIN) to 148 million Nigerians by June 2024.
As of December 2023, data released by the Commission showed that 104.16 million Nigerians had been issued NIN, representing 70% of the target.
The World Bank in its latest implementation report on the project published on March 29, 2024, said “NIMC is making satisfactory progress”.
Highlighting some of the milestones that have been achieved under the project, the World Bank pointed out NIMC has updated its Android enrollment software which shortens the time of enrolment adding that, “updates include the reduction of the enrolment fields to 10 minimal fields, and the introduction of a two-factor authentication for enrolment officers amongst other features of the upgrade are completed.”
In addition to shortening the enrollment time, the project has established relationships with humanitarian and civil societies to ensure the inclusive capture of women. “Enrollment numbers reached ~45 million from ~15 million at the onset of the project, which is 59.4% of the targeted female enrollment. Features of the completed upgrade include a child enrolment use case and school-based enrolment campaigns, which were tested during the test phase enrolments.
The total child enrollment reached 16 million from almost nothing at the onset of the project, which is 31.1% of the targeted child enrolment,” the project report stated.
While there have been concerns recently about unauthorized access to the NIN database, the report indicated that there have been substantial updates in the different components of the NIMC, such as new enrolment of front-end software, middleware solutions, key life-cycle modules, and many more. All of these, it said, have led to better safeguards and built-in data security enhancement.
On the other hand, the system does not currently allow the real-time NIN generation. Efforts are underway to improve the efficiency of the systems which will reduce the time between NIN application and NIN generation.
“NIMC is working on updating the back-end solutions to enable this. Specifically, the ABIS and middleware vendors, IDEMIA and Nadra,” it said.
