Côte d’Ivoire launched, on 5 October 2026, a feasibility study for a national authentication platform and digital identity wallet. The work is being conducted under the Support Project for the Strengthening of Electronic Administration, PARAE.
Building a common verification capacity
The study is to examine how to verify a user’s identity and the electronic attributes required for a procedure. It will compare several scenarios, their levels of assurance and their sustainability, taking into account systems already in place within the administration.
The launch concerns a preliminary study. For citizens or businesses, it therefore does not amount to the opening of a new portal already allowing these operations to be carried out.
A continuity challenge between services
In a digital procedure, authentication establishes who is accessing the service. Attribute verification concerns information or a quality required for that procedure. These two operations can be complementary without answering the same question.
The value of a common system lies in the ability of services to use these verifications consistently. The level of control must also be suited to the operation: consulting information and completing a binding procedure do not have the same requirements.
The comparison of scenarios will therefore need to weigh ease of use, security and running costs. For users, the outcome will be measured by the procedures actually available, the understanding of controls and the ability to complete a process.
The expected next steps are the study’s conclusions and implementation decisions. They will specify the services concerned and the deployment timetable.