African countries are struggling to build robust identity systems
Dec 5th 2019JOHANNESBURGTHE FIRST thing that visitors to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg see is a wall of identity cards—the pieces of paper that determined where people could live and work and whom they could love. From the outset, the apartheid regime’s ability to discriminate against “nie-blankes” (non-whites) depended on having a robust system of identifying people.The opposite problem confronts most other countries in Africa today. Governments have little idea who their citizens are. Around the world, about one billion people lack official proof of their identities, reckons the World Bank. Such citizens cannot, in many cases, get services such as health care, welfare and education. They also struggle to exercise their rights to vote or live in their home countries. States need this information, too. Without it, governments have no idea whom to tax, conscript and protect, or where to allocate resources.Choose us for news analysis that respects your time and intelligenceSubscribe to The EconomistWe filter out the noise of the daily news cycle and analyse the trends that matterWe give you rigorous, deeply researched and fact-checked journalism. That’s why Americans named us their most trusted news source in 2017Available wherever you are—in print, digital and, uniquely, in audio, fully narrated by professional broadcastersThis website adheres to all nine of NewsGuard‘s standards of credibility and transparency.ORContinue reading this articleRegister with an email address