Across Africa

One standard. Sovereign per nation. Federated across borders.

Cattle cross borders; trust has to travel with them. Dzinza is building the same open standard to run as a separate sovereign registry in each country — starting with Zimbabwe — and designed to interoperate with the systems neighbours already have.

The model

Shared standard, separate sovereignty.

Each nation would run its own instance on its own government domain — starting with ZLITSfor Zimbabwe, the proposed first instance — each with its own data, mandate and operator concession. They share one thing: the open contract. That's what would let a certificate issued in one country be trusted in the next.

  • No central super-database — each State holds its own herd.
  • One conformance mark, so integrations port across borders.
  • Federation by agreement, for movement and export between nations.
BAITSNamLITSEswatiniZLITSZimbabwe · proposedProposed LITS instanceExisting system · interoperateConnect the region — don't rip & replace.
Interoperate, don't replace

Built to connect with the systems that already work.

Southern Africa already has mature, EU-grade traceability — Botswana's BAITS, Namibia's NamLITS, Eswatini's national system. LITS isn't here to rip those out. It shares the same international foundations (ICAR / ISO animal-ID, WOAH practice) and exposes an open API, so it can interoperatewith them for cross-border movement and export — bringing the open standard to nations that don't yet have a system, and connecting to those that do.

Interoperability is a design goal of the standard; no integration with a third-party national system is certified yet.

Why per-nation

Sovereignty is the feature, not the compromise.

A single regional database would be cheaper to run and impossible to sell. Separate sovereign instances are the reason a government can adopt it at all.

Each State in control

A nation's herd data lives under its own law and mandate — never pooled into a vendor's regional asset.

One shared contract

The open standard is identical everywhere, so vendors and certificates work across every instance.

Cheap to extend

One shared codebase, many tenants — each new nation is a configuration, not a rebuild.

National instances

The first instance, and the model beyond.

Nothing here is finalised — Zimbabwe is the instance we're pursuing; the rest is the model.

Proposed · in development

ZLITS · Zimbabwe

The first national instance we're pursuing — a Department of Veterinary Services registry on a *.gov.zw domain. In development, not yet finalised; the reference for everything that follows.

Interoperate

Established systems

Neighbours like Botswana (BAITS), Namibia (NamLITS) and Eswatini already run mature systems. LITS is designed to connect with them — not replace them.

Illustrative

Your nation

The same standard is built for any nation without a system yet. No nation beyond Zimbabwe has been approached — this is the model.

Start a conversation

Bring sovereign traceability to your nation.

We work with veterinary authorities and in-country partners to stand up a national instance and hand it over.