Abuja: TECHz – News Desk
The Government of Sierra Leone, through its Ministry of Communication, Technology and Innovation, is advancing its national Digital Public Infrastructure agenda through strategic open-source partnerships.
The initiative establishes a sovereign, privacy-focused digital identity platform designed to streamline public service delivery, expand financial inclusion, and accelerate digital governance. Central to this strategy is a tripartite agreement between the ministry, Bhutan National Digital Identity Limited, and the SIGN Foundation. Under this framework, the ministry provides regulatory leadership, Bhutan NDI supplies its decentralized public key infrastructure blueprints, and the SIGN Foundation leads system architecture and technical deployment.
Complementing this agreement, Sierra Leone’s National Civil Registration Authority partnered with the Modular Open Source Identity Platform and the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore. This effort integrates open-source identity modules with existing civil registration databases to build a scalable identity hub. Supported by the World Bank’s Sierra Leone Digital Transformation Project, these initiatives strengthen the legal, infrastructural, and e-government frameworks required for long-term digital public services.
Built on World Wide Web Consortium standards for verifiable credentials, the platform enables citizens to securely manage and present identity proofs without central tracking. Relying on open-source architecture ensures national data sovereignty and complete local code ownership. A Joint Working Group manages the phased implementation roadmap, emphasizing local engineering capacity building to ensure independent system management over time.
