evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

Khidmaty — Mauritania's Digital One-Stop Shop for Business Registration and Investment Certificates

Mauritania · Nouakchott · See the Mauritania profile · See the Nouakchott profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 83% 52/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Built on the UNDP-funded Houwiyeti biometric digital-ID system piloted through 2023, Mauritania's Khidmaty platform (launched April 2025) lets investors — including diaspora Mauritanians — register a business and apply for investment certificates entirely online.

Khidmaty — Mauritania's Digital One-Stop Shop for Business Registration and Investment Certificates

Details

Promoter
Ministry of Digital Transformation, Innovation and Administrative Modernisation; Agence de Promotion des Investissements en Mauritanie (APIM); Agence Nationale du Registre des Populations et des Titres Sécurisés (ANRPTS); UNDP
Period
2023–2025
Keywords
e-government, digital identity, business registration, investment facilitation

Context

Mauritania's Ministry of Digital Transformation, Innovation and Administrative Modernisation has been building a national digital-identity backbone since at least 2023, when President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani launched the 'Houwiyeti' biometric digital-ID application, developed with biometrics vendor TECH5 and local integrator SmartMS and funded through a UNDP-backed pilot that ran until October 2023.

Objectives

The government aimed to use that digital-identity layer to move previously paper-bound investment procedures online, including for the Mauritanian diaspora who could not otherwise register a company without travelling home.

Activities

On 4 April 2025, the government launched Khidmaty, a web and mobile platform through which investors can complete business creation and Investment Certificate applications, authenticated via Houwiyeti. The rollout was led by the Ministry of Economy and Finance together with the state digital agency AN-ETAT. It follows a 2023 proposed Startup Act intended to give registered startups customs and tax incentives, positioning Mauritania alongside Senegal, Tunisia, Nigeria, Algeria and the DRC in adopting startup-specific legal frameworks.

Conclusions

No usage statistics — registrations processed, processing-time reductions, or diaspora uptake — have been published for Khidmaty; the evidence available is limited to the platform's launch, its technical architecture and its stated policy intent.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
Ministry of Digital Transformation, Innovation and Administrative Modernisation; Agence de Promotion des Investissements en Mauritanie (APIM); Agence Nationale du Registre des Populations et des Titres Sécurisés (ANRPTS); state digital agency AN-ETAT; UNDP (funded the underlying digital-ID pilot); biometrics vendor TECH5 and local integrator SmartMS

Conditions for success

  • A pre-existing national digital-identity layer (Houwiyeti) to authenticate users before adding new online services
  • Multi-agency coordination across digital transformation, investment promotion, civil registry and finance ministries
  • Explicit design for diaspora access, removing the need to travel home to register a business

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

Similar practices you may find useful