NEWS & PUBLICATIONS

The most valuable document in any advisory engagement is the one written before the work begins.

A good recommendation that surprises the wrong person is a failed recommendation.

There are five moments in the life of a national identity programme when independent advisory pays for itself ten times over. Most governments miss all five. Not every phase of an identity programme requires external expertise. But there are five windows where the absence of independent advisory consistently leads to decisions that cost years and millions to reverse.

It is the default condition of complex, multi-stakeholder identity programme advisory — and it is the single most reliable predictor of downstream failure: Teamwork before taskwork. Alignment before analysis. Agreement before assessment.

ICAO’s Traveller Identification Programme — TRIP — represents one of the most ambitious capacity building efforts in the identity and border management space. Its objective: to help 193 member states implement the standards, systems, and institutional capabilities required for secure and efficient traveller identification. The challenge is not ambition. It is delivery. Publishing guidance is not capacity building. Information is not capability.

Ask anyone in your passport authority to draw the system architecture on a whiteboard. Time how long it takes before they reach for a laptop: A system that only its builders understand is a system its operators cannot sustain.

In a fragile state, the identity system isn’t broken. It was never built. Design for the context you find. Not the context you wish existed.

In a fragile state, the identity system isn’t broken. It was never built. International best practice assumes a functioning civil registration system, a reliable chain of custody for foundational documents, trained personnel, stable institutions, and continuous power supply. In fragile and post-conflict environments, none of these assumptions hold. Design for the context you find. Not the context you wish existed.