Cameroon Mandates CAMTEL to Build National Digital ID Interoperability

Cameroon has tasked state telecom operator CAMTEL with building the technical backbone for interoperability across the country’s public digital platforms, including identity and administrative systems. CAMTEL is one of the infrastructural pillars Cameroon’s broader digital transformation rests on.

Minette Libom Li Likeng, Cameroon’s Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, gave CAMTEL the mandate at the opening of the 2026 Internet Governance Forum in Yaounde, addressing the assignment to the operator’s director general, Judith Yah Sunday. Speaking in French, the minister said the country needs to build an environment in which infrastructure, platforms and services can interact securely, in compliance with applicable rules, data protection and sovereignty requirements.

CAMTEL’s mandate covers the connectivity and security layer underneath that goal: operating the national fiber-optic backbone, transmission infrastructure, international capacity, access networks and hosting infrastructure that other government systems depend on. The forum defines interoperability as data such as images, sound and documents moving freely between systems, platforms able to communicate with each other, and administrations exchanging information so citizens and businesses can reach digital services without separate logins and duplicate paperwork for each one.

The mandate adds a coordination layer to identity systems Cameroon has already been rolling out. The country previously launched a biometric national ID system built around a 48-hour issuance promise, and its civil registration agency BUNEC has been digitizing birth certificates through a UNDP-backed project with local councils. Other interoperability work already underway includes the finance ministry integrating its budget and customs systems, and a maritime single-window project connecting the country’s port administrations. In payments, an interoperable QR code from the regional monetary authorities UMAC and BEAC has already begun unifying card and mobile-payment systems across the CEMAC monetary zone, which includes Cameroon.

Cameroon is also part of I-CEMAC, an INTERPOL-linked project to make national security systems in the Central African region interoperable, including wider access to INTERPOL’s I-24/7 database at crossings such as Garoua-Boulai on the border with the Central African Republic. This year’s forum ran under the theme “From fragmentation to interoperability: making data the foundation of digital public infrastructure in Cameroon.”

Sources: Digital Business Africa

–

By the ID Tech Editorial Team