About two weeks ago, in a report prepared for G20 prior to the Leaders’ Summit, the World Bank praised the way India harnessed the power of digital public infrastructure such as Aadhaar and UPI to improve financial inclusion and delivery of public goods and services.
The report which was part of G20’s financial inclusion action plan for 2024-2026 shaped under India’s presidency also mentioned other digital ID systems such as Singapore’s Singpass, Philippines’ PhilSys, and UAE’s UAE-Pass.
With more than 1.3 billion registered users, Aadhaar is the largest national biometric digital identification programme in the world. Modular Open-Source Identity Platform (MOSIP), a digital identity platform developed by the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIITB) has been working on a project to provide digital identities similar to Aadhaar in nine countries including the Philippines, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Ethiopia, Republic of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, and Togolese Republic.
