| Overview : Malawi faces a structural development challenge in the absence of a comprehensive and accurate system of national identification. This scenario fundamentally undermines most citizens’ right to identity and the consequences are multi-sectoral, where citizens’ access and entitlement to services are uncertain. Equally, the absence of a centralized and up-to-date national register has led to a fragile capacity for evidence-based planning, social support service targeting, and accountable administrative systems. Efforts in various arenas have led to fragmented initiatives, creating costly or unsustainable silos of information, while also imposing institutional and technical obstacles to interlink information. In this regard, the National Registration Act (No. 13 of 2010) mandates NRB to establish and maintain a national population register of citizens aged 16 and above. In implementing the mandate, the NRB in collaboration with development partners instituted a National Registration and Identification System (NRIS) project whose expected results are to: - design, establish and manage the necessary systems, infrastructure and equipment for the National Registration and Identification System that employs biometrically secure and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) compliant Smartcards;
- supervise the mass registration for all eligible Malawians (an estimated 9 million) within the country in 2017;
- transition the system to a continuous registration model in 2018 and develop the operational capacity of NRB to maintain the system;
- provide an interface to other public
- and private sector systems that allow for appropriate data sharing within a legal framework that complies with international principles and standards for the right to privacy and data protection; and
- ensure the effective management of the project.
The mass registration phase has completed the registration of 9 million citizens aged 16 and above and card distribution is completed. In this context, the present ITB refers to the transition of the system to a continuous registration model in 2018. The NRIS project through this ITB, endeavours to connect 96 selected Post Offices to the 27 District Fibre Drop Off Points (FDOPs) on the Fibre Optic Backbone (FOB) located in each District Registration Office (DRO). | 
