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The ability to prove one's identity is a cornerstone of participation in modern life, yet over 1.5 billion people lack proof of legal identity. As a first step in assisting its client countries to close this identity gap, the World Bank Group's ID4D initiative conducts Identity Management Systems Analyses (IMSAs) to evaluate countries' identity ecosystems and facilitate collaboration with governments for future work. To date, analyses have been conducted in 17 African countries, including Botswana, Chad, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Guinea, Lenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Zambia.

Ict Policy and Strategies --- Information and Communication Technologies

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The global landscape of identification (ID) is changing rapidly. Technology is making it cheaper to identify people accurately, while the opportunities of the digital era are making it more important to be able to prove one's identity. The role of ID systems has become essential in areas ranging from financial inclusion, social protection, migration, and even coping with natural disasters. Based on the World Bank's identification for development (ID4D) program's database, more than 40 percent of those lacking IDs in the world live in Africa. For the first time, the World Bank is planning to provide financial support and technical assistance to ID systems in Africa; this is an area in which it has had marginal involvement until now. The knowledge base related to ID systems in Africa has expanded dramatically. Applying a standardized assessment approach, the World Bank has financed more than 20 country reports and produced a synthesis report covering 17 of them. This publication draws from those reports as well as primary and secondary sources to provide a brief sketch of the foundational ID system in 48 African countries. The brief also confirms that the gaps in the legal and institutional environment that were found in the subset of countries covered in the synthesis report are representative of the wider African context. This volume represents a very small step toward increasing the understanding of the rapidly changing landscape of ID systems in Africa.

Ict Policy and Strategies --- Information and Communication Technologies

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Limited competition hinders the optimal use of telecommunication services in the Dominican Republic, which lags peer countries in mobile subscriptions and internet penetration. Despite recent reforms designed to enhance competition, the telecommunications sector remains dominated by a small number of companies. In addition, the antimonopoly policy is perceived to be weak compared to regional peers. High infrastructure costs limit the economic viability of replicating key facilities, creating bottlenecks. Fixed telecom prices have remained largely unresponsive to changes in demand over the last eight years. Moreover, prices for both mobile communications and fixed broadband are higher in the DR than in peer countries. Following the World Bank Group's Markets and Competition Policy Assessment Toolkit (MCPAT), this policy note provides a brief overview of key bottlenecks affecting the telecommunications sector, as well as key pro-competition reforms that could improve the regulatory landscape. Due to its inherent characteristics, the telecommunications markets, fixed, mobile and internet, in DR are concentrated. Currently, there are three main operators in the fixed, mobile and internet markets, with few smaller operators having a residual market share in the fixed and internet markets. While market concentration is common in the telecommunication sector in many countries, the interaction between market characteristics and the regulatory framework for telecommunications is key to yield efficient market outcomes in terms of prices, quality and access to services.

Competition Policy --- ICT Policy and Strategies --- Information and Communication Technologies --- Licensing --- Private Sector Development --- Tariffs --- Telecommunications

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The 2020 G20 Presidency mandated the Infrastructure Working Group (IWG) to develop an agenda to accelerate the adoption and application of technology-enabled infrastructure (InfraTech). This agenda supports two existing IWG initiatives, the Roadmap to Infrastructure as an Asset Class, and the G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment (QII). Technology supports the roadmap by providing enhanced data, tools, and transparency for investors. In addition, it creates new investment opportunities by creating new markets, business models and potential for enhanced revenues. InfraTech also supports QII, as many technologies maximize the positive impact of infrastructure by enhancing sustainability, inclusivity, and resilience. The potential economic efficiencies that new technologies offer also help attain value for money across the project lifecycle and potentially reduce upfront or recurring public financial outlays. InfraTech also provides valuable tools for governments to respond to the COVID-19 health and economic crisis. This Reference Note supports the InfraTech Agenda endorsed by the G20 Infrastructure Working Group by outlining the potential economic, social, and environmental value to countries generated by adopting InfraTech solutions. It also provides a framework for evaluating the benefits of these solutions against their costs and risks. This paper focuses on the transport, energy, water, and digital infrastructure sectors.

Artificial Intelligence --- Big Data --- Digital Divide --- ICT Policy and Strategies --- Information and Communication Technologies --- Information Technology

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Approximately one billion people globally lack government-recognized identification. As a consequence, they face barriers to accessing critical services and exercising their rights. Robust, inclusive, and responsible foundational identification (ID) systems2 can be transformative for a country's development and for the welfare of its poorest and most vulnerable populations by enabling financial inclusion, the empowerment of women and girls, access to basic services, social safety nets, and political participation. Moreover, at a systemic level, leapfrogging traditional paper-based approaches in favor of digital identification systems can generate significant benefits across the public and private sectors by increasing efficiency and accountability (chiefly through the reduction of fraud, leakages, and waste in public programs) as well as driving innovation in service delivery (through the use of mobile or digital payments, for instance). As governments across the globe are implementing new, digital foundational identification systems or modernizing existing ID programs, there is an urgent need to develop accurate estimations of the associated costs. There are a handful of existing analyses that have attempted to estimate the overall cost of foundational ID systems: for instance, Gelb and Diofasi Metz (2018) estimate that it is likely to cost a low income country roughly 0.6 percent of GDP to build a foundational ID system, or about USD 4-11 investment per registrant for enrolment and credential issuance. The same study cites figures for a few countries suggesting recurrent costs of around 0.06-0.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). As the authors point out however, few data points exist and these figures may not apply to different types of systems or to all countries.

Digital identity --- ICT applications --- ICT policy and strategies --- Information and communication technologies --- Information technology