2023-Public-Sector-Perspectives

CBDCs must be carefully designed, distributed and managed to ensure they continue to facilitate the circulation and control of money, as well as opportunities to create financing and promote economic growth. • SDG 2: Zero hunger. Digital solutions can help combat food insecurity. In 2021, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), Citibank Zambia Limited and MTN Zambia unveiled a novel digital payment solution targeting refugees. The solution provides cash assistance to people living in Mantapala Refugee Settlement, home to around 18,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, through a digital payment solution called plugPAY. Under the initiative, the payment platform allows WFP to transfer cash directly to refugees’ bank accounts or mobile wallets of choice while using the country’s interoperable payment gateway, the National Financial Switch. Over 1,000 refugees were successfully targeted in three batches of payments. These initial results proved the efficiency of the platform and WFP plans to scale up plugPAY to cover the entire refugee population of around 17,000 refugees receiving cash assistance. Child-headed households and refugees without SIM cards will remain on monthly food assistance. “Financial inclusion is a key priority for the Zambian Government who recognizes financial services as a pathway for wealth creation, economic growth and sustainable development,” said Citibank Zambia Chief Executive Officer, Lowani Chibesakunda. “plugPay is well aligned to national priorities, and this innovative partnership will help to realize government efforts to improve financial inclusion.” • SDG 3: Good health and wellbeing. Direct patient interaction, health informatics and telemedicine can be improved through better connectivity. Digital identity at its most basic is a way to digitally and definitively identify and authenticate the identity of an individual or entity. In a digital world, definitive identification is key to many processes and interactions (as noted above with regards to CBDCs). Identification is also increasingly relevant for access to services such as health and welfare. In addition to identification and authentication, digital identity can be extended and developed to enable exchange of data and other information on a consent basis: data is linked to the digital identity and can be shared or accessed with the consent of the identity holder. In many cases this can be adapted to a ‘verified credentials’ model: confirming that criteria are met, rather than seeking the data that proves this (e.g. confirming the person is over 18 rather than asking for their date of birth). This capability offers many opportunities to enable people to engage with services without needing to retain paperwork or track records as everything is digital. Such an approach might be especially attractive for younger digitally- native populations. Challenges include the potential for fraud and abuse particularly if administrators are unfamiliar with the dynamics of digital interactions and data handling. There is merit to considering digital identity programs initiated by public sector rather than private companies. In any case, it is important to consider interoperability — with international systems and local organizations alike — to avoid creating complexity. Citi Perspectives for the Public Sector 59