The government of Lesotho and UNICEF have formalized a 2026 Annual Work Plan aimed at developing an integrated national digital identity ecosystem on the Modular Open Source Identity Platform (MOSIP), marking a significant step in the country’s digital public infrastructure program.
The agreement was signed by Principal Secretary Kanono Ramashamole, representing Lesotho’s Ministry of Information, Communications, Science, Technology and Innovation (MICSTI), and UNICEF Representative Deepak Bhaskaran, with Director-General ICT Thapeli Tjabane and UNICEF Technology for Development Specialist Ramoletane Lekhanya as witnesses.
The work plan is structured under the Lesotho-UNICEF Programme of Cooperation 2025 to 2028 and covers a broad range of identity system improvements: national ID and passport renewal processes, biometric registration, proof-of-life verification, and updating of expired identity documents. It also targets stronger identity verification for financial services and improved monitoring of financial flows as tools against fraud and money laundering.
Lesotho is building on MOSIP, the open source platform that has become a leading foundation for national digital ID programs across the Global South. The country is also a member of the 50-in-5 campaign, which supports nations in deploying secure, inclusive, and interoperable digital public infrastructure by 2028.
UNICEF co-chairs the UN Legal Identity Agenda Task Force and has been instrumental in supporting digital ID initiatives across Africa, where the UN’s SDG 16.9 target — universal legal identity including civil registration by 2030 — remains a key benchmark. The Lesotho program follows Uganda’s NIRA, which recently completed the migration of more than 28 million biometric records to MOSIP in the platform’s first completed brownfield implementation.
Sources: Government of Lesotho
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By the Mobile ID World Editorial Team
