Paper short abstract:

The Ghana Citizen Card is considered central to unlocking e-governance in Ghana. The cards potential in government connectivity and service accessibility for civil society are promising, but stagnant implementation has led to domestic and foreign questioning of the efficiency of digitalization.

Paper long abstract:

The foundation and implementation of the National Identification Authority (NIA) in Ghana in 2003 introduced a government branch concerned with the development of a system that captures the country's population through the digitalization of an institution. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the current Vice-President of Ghana, has been a key advocate for the digitalization of Ghanaian governance institutions, and has been pushing for the Ghana Citizen Card (GCC) as the main form of identification. The GCC promises accessibility to public government services, including healthcare, voter registration and travel across West Africa and beyond. Although the cards versatility is promising, the standardization of the card among civil society has been slow. Implementing a private-public partnership by cracking down on access to sim cards only through the ID document should have motivated people to sign up for the card. Although an increase in registration has taken place, it is not to the extent that the NIA had hoped for. This raises the question of how accessible the features of the GCC are to the wider population in accessing government services and how embedded its use is in public government institutions. What does the lack of use say about the digitalization efforts of government institutions, and how has the support of foreign governments in this process aided or stagnated implementation? By analyzing the digitalization steps of Ghanaian institutions and their access to services, the card's potential in advancing government digitalization and foreign stakeholder influence can be understood.