the zambian innovation series: e-government — what zambia is building
the institutional framework: the SMART zambia institute — a division under the office of the president, established 2016 — coordinates and implements electronic government. the electronic government act no. 41 of 2021 provides the legislative foundation. the 2023-2026 national electronic government plan (NeGP) sets out zambia's digital transformation roadmap.
zamportal and the government service bus: zamportal hosts 322 services on the government service bus — a national platform digitally integrating all government institutions, departments, and agencies. since implementation, zamportal has recorded over 3.7 million transactions. zampost has partnered with SMART zambia to bring GSB services to post office locations across the country, extending digital services to citizens without reliable home internet access.
what citizens can actually do online: apply for national ID cards (zambian citizens, commonwealth citizens, foreign residents). the online passport application and payment system has processed over 1,000 passports. pay ground rent online. the ministry of labour on-boarded 29 services onto the GSB through ZELMIS, allowing citizens to access labour services through their phones in real time.
zambia's EGDI ranking — the UN e-government development index — improved from 148th to 131st out of 193 countries.
zampass: the national authentication and access control service for governmental electronic services — the foundation that makes secure citizen identity verification online possible. the digital zambia acceleration project (DZAP), signed october 2024, specifically targets roll-out of digital authentication and verification infrastructure.
the innovation ecosystem connection: the government service bus creates, in principle, the data exchange infrastructure that civic technology applications can connect to. zampass creates the foundation for private sector digital services needing to verify user identity. zamportal's 322 services and 3.7 million transactions are the government-side infrastructure that, if the API layer is built correctly, becomes the resource zambian developers can build on.
zambia is building the digital foundation. the construction is visible, measurable, and accelerating.
the zambian innovation series continues. 🇿🇲💡