Grace Ashiru
Developers and tech experts from all over Sub-Saharan Africa can now apply to the Lesotho Public Financial Management hackathon to win the $10,000 grand prize. With help from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the hackathon will take place in Maseru, Lesotho, from January 24 to January 26, 2023.
According to the organizers, teams of up to five people are expected to demonstrate their talents in cryptographic expertise, corporate design, and software development during the LesothoPFMHackathon.
The hackathon seeks to build a viable, cutting-edge solution to authenticate Integrated Financial Management System transactions and documents (IFMIS). This can be a digital signature utility that verifies against the national digital identification infrastructure.
Also, the solutions that will be worked on could be used for transaction processing in the public sector.
LesothoPFMHackathon is happening when people become more aware that public services need to be updated to meet the needs of changing industries, growing populations, and government business. E-Government has become a key part of making service delivery more efficient.
Several countries, like India and Singapore, have proved that implementing IFMIS in a safe and people-centered manner provides extra benefits.
In 2009, IFMIS solutions were implemented by the Ministry of Finance in Lesotho as the first step to digitalizing public financial management. This was improved even more in 2019 to fix problems with how it was used, especially to improve the quality of financial reporting.
As a result, the hackathon is an extra step in the government’s digitalizing public financial management systems. The winning solution will eliminate paper-based transaction processing in the design while enhancing internal controls and preventing further accumulation of expenditure arrears.
Registration is open until Wednesday, December 21.
