African Countries Struggle to Build Robust Identity Systems. But That May Soon Change, Thanks to the awkward capture of The Economist

Abstract

Towards the end of 2019 a remarkable publication on identification systems in Africa was published in The Economist. The article contained a, for The Economist, unusual number of errors and spurious claims, but also was so specific that its provenance and genesis were suspect. In an underhand, indirect way the article held the Indian Aadhaar system up as a good practice example, while depicting the development of identification systems in Africa as a struggle (if not a failure). Some of the content of the article reads more as a sales document than an article for The Economist would normally be written, and would be scrutinized to avoid the newspaper would be seen as an extension of private interests. By the end of 2019 India experienced one of its most serious public upheavals in the last few decades. The unrest was caused by the Modi government’s passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act, which became commonly seen as discriminatory vis-à-vis Indians of the Muslim faith. At the same time the registration of people living in the state of Assam in the population register resulted in the de facto statelessness of 1.6 million people — 70% of which actually being of the Hindu faith. The minister of Home Affairs was speaking of “illegal immigrants” as “termites”. In this environment charged by the anxiety of millions who suddenly wondered about proof of their own citizenship, the article in The Economist could not have been more poorly timed. But the article also lacks any reference to the problems around Aadhaar (that provides no solution to the citizenship question), as if in India no opposition existed (and exists) against Aadhaar. An article that The Economist published a year earlier is much more nuanced and “studied” for example. Rather awkward, the 2019 article here reviewed suggests that Africa’s problems can be solved by the use of open source software, such as was used for Aadhaar. It is hard not to conclude that the reviewed 2019 article is not an independent piece but an attempt to sell Africa a “solution” that India can provide it. The idea is preposterous and shows that however much the (ghost) author may know about Aadhaar, s/he has understood little if anything about what the actual identity management problems are in Africa, and what is needed for their solution. What remains is the question: “Who planted the story, and who at The Economist let the newspaper be taken for a ride?”