Addis Ababa: The Fully Digitized Capital

Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa: CRRSA is set to launch a city-wide infrastructure that will underpin E-ID as well as digital birth, death and marriage registration. This is core to the Agency’s wider plan for making Addis smart and they are calling software partners who want to be involved in their comprehensive digitization efforts.

A mobile application ‘Digital Kebele’ will be launched, easing access of CRRSA services to the residents. The app is expected to include a digital ID system that has its own unique identifier for the purpose of easier verification by authorities.

The CRRSA Director, Yonas Alemayehu even envisions the possibility of having automatic registration in all hospitals within Addis Ababa by registering births and deaths. In just the same way courts will be able to update records for divorces and so on with other marital developments. He acknowledged that the current system, which has been around for a decade or more is obsolete and can no longer cope with the explosion in population going on in city.

“Soon residents will be able to access our services, from home,” Yonas told.

Moving forward, Yonas expects smartphones to fulfill two roles: serving as IDs and ride passes alike.

The Agency is also setting up a seminar called ‘Digital Civil Registration for Smart City’ over the next two weeks to showcase these findings. While Yonas is committed to streamlining all of CRRSA’s services, he noted it must be done with attention to detail so residents can have swift access.

“…we expect to have cut that time by at least half,” he said.

The Agency has so far procured 800 computers; set up an internal data center and would buy the software to start soon. By the end of next year, Yonas hopes to reduce such visits even further and avoid any recurring trips for residents visiting Kebele offices. Given that almost 40% of Ethiopians are undocumented, the government has rolled out a number of technology-based programs to address this loophole. On the back of that, there is a national ID project named Fayda with sights set on registering at least 90 million Ethiopians within five years and which has so far enrolled over,8 million people.

Yonas said such an ID will be a functional document that is designed to meet the local needs of those living in Addis Ababa, as well he would complement current national projects like Fayda.

Last week, Yonas sat down with the heads of Toppan Gravity Ethiopia—a joint venture formed between the Ethiopian government and Japanese security printing leader Toppan to discuss CRRSA’s desire to find software partners.

The registration of resident ID digital services in Addis Ababa is a key component of an ambitious city hall project, focusing on transforming the capital into a smart city via enabling top-notch tech infrastructure. The big vision is a wide gamut of government services through intelligent means which contributes to an environmentally sustainable green city.

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