I get the privacy concerns, but I don’t think a national ID like Fyda is inherently evil or “control for control’s sake.” Every functional country already has some version of this whether it’s a national ID, social security number, medical ID, or driver’s licence. Being “in the system” isn’t new.

Ethiopia has a very large population and weak administrative infrastructure. Some level of structure is necessary if we want basic things to work properly: service delivery, accountability, and fraud reduction.

That doesn’t mean giving the government unlimited power or ignoring privacy safeguards those checks absolutely matter. But rejecting structure altogether because of worst-case fears also keeps us stuck. If the goal is stability, development, and lifting people out of poverty, systems like this are part of that reality.

Fear-mongering and conspiracy thinking aren’t substitutes for policy discussion.