Somalia Showcases Progress on National ID at ID4Africa 2025 Annual Conference

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – 20 May 2025: The Director General of Somalia’s National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA), Mr. Abdiweli Ali Abdulle (Timacadde), delivered a key presentation this morning at the Annual Conference of #ID4Africa2025, held this year in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Mr. Abdulle shared Somalia’s experience and achievements in building a unified foundational digital ID system, which is central to delivering services across both government and private sectors. He emphasized the importance of a trusted identity system for national development and inclusive access to services.

During his remarks, the Director General highlighted the tangible milestones Somalia has reached in its digital ID journey. These include the establishment and expansion of registration centers across the country and the rollout of homegrown technology platforms such as Hubiye, e-Aqoonsi, and the Certificate Delivery System (CDS)—each designed to enhance identity issuance, verification, and service delivery.

Mr. Abdulle also offered reflections on key lessons from Somalia’s approach, noting that despite limited technical capacity, the country strategically focused its in-house expertise on areas such as software development, policy oversight, and coordination, while leveraging partnerships to fast-track delivery. “We understood early on that to move fast and at scale, we could not build everything from scratch,” he said. “Instead, we partnered with experienced players and focused our internal capacity where it adds the most value. These are lessons we believe other African nations can learn from.”

Looking to the future, the Director General unveiled NIRA’s roadmap, which includes a target to register 15 million people by 2029, the integration of iris capture and advanced biometric verification, and the introduction of pre-registration and online registration capabilities to improve accessibility and efficiency.

The ID4Africa 2025 Annual Conference, officially opened by H.E. Abiy Ahmed, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, brought together high-level delegations from over 90 countries. Somalia was represented by a delegation comprising federal government officials, members of the Federal Parliament, and representatives from Federal Member States, all committed to advancing digital identity as a key driver for inclusive development.