Africa-Press – Lesotho. The Ministry of Information, Communications, Science, Technology and Innovation (MICSTI) and UNICEF have signed the 2026 Annual Work Plan under the Lesotho–UNICEF Programme of Cooperation 2025–2028 to advance Lesotho’s digital identity and civil registration systems.
The work plan supports development of an integrated national digital identity ecosystem to improve services such as national ID and passport renewal, biometric registration, proof-of-life verification and updating of expired identity documents.
It also strengthens identity verification for financial services and contributes to improved monitoring of financial flows and prevention of fraud and money laundering.
Aligned with the National Strategic Development Plan II and the National Social Protection Strategy II, the initiative will continue deployment of digital public infrastructure based on the Modular Open Source Identity Platform (MOSIP) to enable secure authentication across government and private-sector services, including mobile-based verification.
The agreement was signed by The Principal Secretary Mr Kanono Ramashamole on behalf of MICSTI and UNICEF representative Mr Deepak Bhaskaran witnessed by Director-General ICT Mr Thapeli Tjabane and UNICEF Technology for Development Specialist Mr Ramoletane Lekhanya.
