The government of Lesotho and UNICEF have signed a 2026 Annual Work Plan to advance the development of an integrated national digital identity ecosystem, with deployment to continue on the Modular Open Source Identity Platform (MOSIP).
The agreement was signed by Principal Secretary Kanono Ramashamole on behalf of Lesotho’s Ministry of Information, Communications, Science, Technology and Innovation (MICSTI) and UNICEF Representative Deepak Bhaskaran. The signing was witnessed by Director-General ICT Thapeli Tjabane and UNICEF Technology for Development Specialist Ramoletane Lekhanya.
The work plan falls under the Lesotho-UNICEF Programme of Cooperation 2025 to 2028. It covers improvements to national ID and passport renewal processes, biometric registration, proof-of-life verification, and updating of expired identity documents.
The initiative also aims to strengthen identity verification for financial services and improve monitoring of financial flows to prevent fraud and money laundering. The government said the program is aligned with the National Strategic Development Plan II and the National Social Protection Strategy II.
Lesotho is building its digital public infrastructure on MOSIP, which has emerged as a leading open source platform for national digital ID deployments across the Global South. The country is a member of the 50-in-5 campaign, an initiative supporting countries in building secure, inclusive, and interoperable digital public infrastructure by 2028. Credence ID has joined the MOSIP Marketplace as a qualified system integrator, reflecting the platform’s growing ecosystem of implementation partners.
UNICEF, as co-chair of the UN Legal Identity Agenda Task Force, plays a significant role in supporting digital identity initiatives particularly in Africa, where many countries are working to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goal 16.9 target of providing legal identity to all people, including civil registration, by 2030.
The Lesotho deployment is part of a growing wave of MOSIP-based national ID programs across Africa. Uganda’s NIRA recently completed migration of more than 28 million biometric records to the MOSIP platform in what has been described as the platform’s first completed brownfield implementation, establishing a reference case for large-scale deployments on the continent.
Sources: Government of Lesotho
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
