The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (FMAFR) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) have launched digital identity cards with multiple wallets. This initiative aims to boost food security and increase Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The digital identity cards align with the National Identity Number (NIN) enabled farmer registry and the Government to People (G2P) card initiative. This move is part of the government’s efforts to enhance transparency, efficiency, and inclusivity.
“This project is designed to address the Federal Ministry’s immediate challenges of identity and authentication, required to deliver government services efficiently and accurately,” the government said on Thursday in a statement. A joint statement by the Director of Information at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. Joel Oruche, and the Head of Corporate Communications for NIMC, Dr. Kayode Adegoke, confirmed the development. They emphasized the government’s commitment to improving the lives of Nigerians.
The initiative is in line with the President’s Renewed Hope Agenda, which prioritizes food security. The digital identity cards with multiple wallets will facilitate targeted services and support for farmers, promoting financial inclusion and reducing poverty.
“It aims to eradicate the challenges faced by FMAFS in efficiently delivering well-intended government programmes to the targeted citizens,” they added. Speaking on the benefits, the government said: “By adopting this card, FMAFS can uniquely identify all farmers, provide multiple agricultural services through the card in a manner that eliminates risks and fraud, and also provide end-to-end visibility within the agricultural value chain, thus enabling scalability.
“Agricultural services to be provided through the card include farmer financing, input distribution, farmland mapping linked to identity, extension services monitoring & evaluation, and agency banking, as well as multiple types of third party services.”
The statement reads: “To this end, FMAFS, guided by Mr President’s circular on the use of the National Identification Number (NIN) by all MDAs in the provision of government services to beneficiaries, has partnered with NIMC to leverage the National Identity Management System to power the Ministry’s farmer registry by linking the NIN and attendant biometric identity data of each farmer to their farmland, as well as all necessary supporting data relating to that farmer, including the size of the holding and type of crops or livestock.
“Connecting this NIN-backed registry to the G2P card will thereby allow for the provision of targeted and ring-fenced aid to the farmers and other recipients of government benefits under the FMAFS programmes.
“The G2P card ecosystem is an initiative that allows for the issuance of NIN-enabled cards by Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), and enables the use of the card’s frontend by these MDAs for their respective programmes.
“The key feature of the ecosystem is a biometrics card with multiple wallets that can provide verifiable identification and also process transactions without internet connectivity, allowing the Ministry to support beneficiaries in the most remote locations.
“The card is unique to each citizen, and every Nigerian and legal resident is eligible to obtain it, whether banked or unbanked. The G2P card will be owned by and personalised by each MDA that adopts its usage.
“Within this framework, NIMC will provide the foundational identity ecosystem to FMAFS, who, as the owner of both the farmer registry and G2P card scheme, will provide government services via the issued G2P cards, tailored to the needs of the farmers supported by the Ministry at the national and sub-national levels.
“The G2P card has a large capacity in-card chip that stores beneficiary identity, know your customer (KYC), picture, and fingerprints. In addition, it has two applets and several wallets dedicated to multiple types of programmes, which provide needed flexibility and channels for multiple interventions to be implemented against the same unique identity.
“This flexibility is required to address infrastructure challenges limiting identity verification and digital evidence of beneficiary access when implementing government programmes. “The G2P biometric cards are processed through a bespoke but interoperable biometrics Point of Sale (POS) acceptance device, which requires biometrics to access and operate. “This technological approach allows the Ministry to better deliver services and programmes in any location, regardless of infrastructure challenges. The card will operate as a digital wallet/prepaid card, and it is tailored for government transactions such as subsidies, loans, welfare disbursement, pensions, and other activities carried out by FMAFS.
“NIMC’s role is to provide the ecosystem with foundational biometric identity in the NIN to ensure that the card and its attendant benefits are securely and accurately linked to the beneficiary and the beneficiary only. FMAFS retains its statutory rights and ownership of the data generated. “With the G2P ecosystem, any programme implemented by the Ministry can now be administered independently and showcased through digitally enabled dashboards displaying key data on how each programme has been efficiently implemented or otherwise.”
Source: https://thenationonline.net
