Virtually every country in Africa has its digital identity system. In some of these places, the identity system does not protect fundamental human rights and data privacy while some have a different identity system from other African countries.

Eliud Owalo, Kenya’s cabinet secretary (CS) for information and communication technology, is calling for the establishment of an integrated African digital identity to foster connectivity and strengthen economic ties on the African continent. He believes that it is time to go beyond African countries conducting digital transformation in silos.

In his words, Owalo says;

“We have been doing our initiatives at individual country level but we need to move forward in tandem as one united Africa digital economy,”.

“When it comes to policies, laws, and regulations, we need to have them in a way that we speak to each other as opposed to being discordant to each other.”

It is a dream that he believes will go beyond continental digital to data centers, digital job training, digital entrepreneurship, and digital identity. To achieve this continental digital framework, he believes that the framework will be made to fit into each country's digital framework, saying that African Countries can “think and act jointly and leverage each other’s strength, enjoy economies of scale, reduce the unit cost and have better bargaining power in the global digital market.”

There has been concern about this idea, especially with the fact that Kenya's first digital identity Framework was abandoned after some months due to a lack of human rights and data protection. Questions are on whether Kenya is fit to lead this continental digital identity journey. The new Kenya digital ID system known as Maisha Namba offers better data protection and has been accepted by Kenyans.

Do you see African countries coming together to establish a continental digital identity structure? Drop your opinion down the comment section