The West African nation of Sierra Leone is at full throttle with its digital transformation efforts, and its MOSIP-based foundational identity system is the nucleus of this project.

The Modular Open Source Identity Platform (“MOSIP”) is a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation initiative that provides a platform on which all countries can build their own digital ID system “for free.”

On Friday, an article ‘Sierra Leone putting digital ID at the centre of its digital transformation agenda’, published by Biometric Update, reported on an interview with Sierra Leone’s National Civil Registration Authority (“NCRA”) Deputy Director Moses T.F. Vibbie. The interview was conducted on the sidelines of a MOSIP Connect event last month in Addis Ababa.

Vibbie explained that the strong political will of the country’s President, Julius Maada Bio, and the dedication of the NCRA’s Director General, Mohamed Mubashir Massaquoi, are the other driving forces behind the initiative. Massaquoi is also an ambassador for ID4Africa whose foundation partners are the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Network.