Opportunity for Africa

AMID the coronavirus pandemic, people have realised how important connections are to Africa and the world.

Prior to the lockdown, moves were already afoot to improve continental commerce with the launch of the landmark Africa Continental Free Trade Area agreement last year.

While this has been a positive development, Africa still has a long way to go.

With 54 countries, there are 54 different identity and national border systems. This is naturally challenging for businesses. However, by managing identity verification better, we can respect each nation’s sovereignty while boosting trade.

The key to achieving this lies with the use of biometrics and more continental-wide identity bureaus.

China’s widespread biometric identity system has enabled a universal cashless payment system. Its citizens of 1.4 billion rarely use credit cards or cash to buy goods.

In Africa, the appetite for cashless trade is just as strong, as is seen with the incredible success of M-Pesa in Kenya. To have more M-Pesas in Africa, more regional biometric identity bureaus need to be set up.

Having a singular identity bureau hosting the passport and ID information of all citizens would create the base infrastructure to enable faster, more efficient cross-border payments.

In South Africa, there are already efforts under way to digitise capturing of identity information through fingerprint and facial biometrics. African countries have the ability to catch-up.