A 10-day mission to Pakistan has given Somali officials a close look at digital systems that support identity registration, social protection, taxation, payments and access to government services.
A senior Somali delegation has completed a peer-learning visit to Pakistan, seeking practical lessons for building Somalia’s digital public ecosystem and expanding the reach and effectiveness of digital public services.
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Led by Abdiwali Ali Abdulle, Director General of Somalia’s National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA), the delegation included senior officials from NIRA, the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Somalia and other financial and development institutions.
The mission was jointly organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) country offices in Pakistan and Somalia. During the 10-day programme, Somali officials met Pakistani institutions responsible for digital identity, digital government, social protection, taxation, digital payments and citizen services.
At the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), the delegation examined Pakistan’s national identity system and the institutional arrangements supporting it. Officials also met the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication and other digital bodies to discuss digital public infrastructure, interoperability and the proposed development of a national data exchange layer.
In Lahore, the delegation visited an e-Khidmat Centre, where it observed the delivery of multiple government services through a single, integrated digital platform.
The officials also visited the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) to study Pakistan’s National Socio-Economic Registry and digital mechanisms for distributing social protection payments. At the Federal Board of Revenue, discussions examined how digital identity and integrated data could support taxpayer registration.
The State Bank of Pakistan presented its Raast instant payment system and the banking sector’s shared electronic know-your-customer (e-KYC) platform. A separate engagement with civil society organizations considered ways to reach women, displaced people and communities that face obstacles to registration.
The visit ended with the Somalia-Pakistan Technical Cooperation Roundtable, where Senate Chairman Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani served as chief guest. Senior representatives from the participating institutions reviewed the mission’s findings, cooperation priorities and potential areas for future technical collaboration.
“Digital governance is an important instrument for improving public service delivery, institutional efficiency, accountability and citizen inclusion,” Gilani said. He said parliament had a key responsibility to ensure digital transformation was inclusive, secure, accountable and rights-based, pointing to the Senate of Pakistan’s transition towards a paperless e-Parliament.
Abdiwali Ali Abdulle said the mission had enabled Somalia to draw on Pakistan’s experience and assess which approaches could be adapted to the Somali context.
He said Pakistan offered important experience in digital identity, digital finance, social protection and interoperability. Somalia, he added, could in turn offer Pakistan insights from its use of mobile money and its rapid adoption of digital services.
Participants also endorsed the Somalia-Pakistan Partnership Action Matrix. The framework identifies continued cooperation in foundational and legal identity, digital public infrastructure and governance, interoperability, secure data exchange, financial inclusion and digital public financing.
Jama Hassan, Counsellor at the Embassy of Somalia, said the programme had offered valuable insight into Pakistan’s functioning identity and broader e-governance systems.
“Functional identity is not synonymous with number or databases,” he said, stressing that identity systems must be connected to people’s ability to access public services.
Dr. Samuel Rizk, Resident Representative of UNDP Pakistan, said legal identity was a foundation of inclusive governance, enabling people to obtain services, social protection and financial opportunities.
He said UNDP’s partnership with NADRA in Pakistan had helped more than one million women secure identity documents. The Somalia mission, he added, was intended to share those lessons while advancing trust, inclusion and data protection alongside technological progress.
