ECOWAS Commission and the World Bank confer with BCEAO on digital identification (ID) initiatives

The ECOWAS Commission and the World Bank on Thursday October 24, 2024, conducted a working visit to the West African Central Bank (BCEAO) in Dakar, Senegal to initiate discussions on complementary digital identification (ID) initiative in the ECOWAS region.

The visit which was within the framework of the World Bank-funded West Africa Unique Identification for Regional Integration and Inclusion (WURI) programme, was to facilitate learning with the purpose to minimise duplication of efforts and achieve a coherent and coordinated regional approach to service delivery through foundational ID (fID) systems.

The Director of Free Movement of Persons and Migration who led the ECOWAS delegation, Mr. Albert Siaw-Boateng, on behalf of the Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Agriculture, Mrs. Massandje Toure-Litse said “our primary goal was to address concerns raised with the WURI participating Member States regarding a similar assignment reportedly conducted by BCEAO”. “Our meeting with you therefore is to understand the findings and identify any key recommendation that would allow alignment with the WURI project currently under implementation”, he explained.

On the part of BCEAO led by the Director of Financial Inclusion, Mme Niffone Jacqueline DABOU, they are aware of the WURI programme and its objectives and they are of the opinion that both institutions can leverage on each other to bring about success in the digitalisation drive. They therefore advocated for the setting up of a working group to explore ways to ensure that the identification number assigned to an individual through WURI is integrated into the information systems of banking and financial institutions.

The World Bank delegation led by the Sr. Counsel, Human Development & Technology, Lead, WURI-ECOWAS Project, Mr. Conrad Daly, also used the opportunity to introduce a new initiative, Women Entrepreneur Financial Initiative (WEFI) that seeks to collect disaggregated data on financial inclusion. The project stems from the fact that there is a huge gap financing to women entrepreneurs in Africa.

The ECOWAS delegation was composed of the Director Free Movement of Persons & Migration (Head of the delegation), Head of ECOWAS National Office in Senegal, Acting Director Legal Affairs, Acting Principal Programme Officer Relations with Member States, External Relations, and Programme Officer e-Applications. Others were the WURI Project Manager and the WURI Communications Specialist.