Africa-Press – Mozambique. The World Bank has approved a 150 million US dollar grant to support the Mozambican government’s Digital Governance and Economy Project (EDGE) to increase access to identification documents and digital public services, and to create digital business opportunities.
According to the World Bank’s representative in Mozambique, Idah Pswarayi-Riddihough, “sixty per cent of the Mozambican population lacks official civil identification. This leads to disenfranchisement and leaves large portions of the population, a majority of whom are women, without legal identity, preventing them from accessing schooling, and later in life financial services, pensions, formal jobs, entitlement claims and property transactions”.
The project’s lead, Tiago Peixoto, stressed that the project aims to deliver public services “faster, cheaper, and better”.
The grant is from the International Development Association (IDA), a World Bank affiliate that was established in 1960 to provide grants and low interest loans to the world’s poorest countries for projects to boost economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve poor people’s lives. It has supported development in 113 countries with an average annual disbursement over the last three years of 18 billion US dollars.
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