The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> Good afternoon, thank you for joining us. We will discuss why this subject is important for the continent. Despite progress made by African country digital economy, we are facing several challenge. One of the key challenge is cyber security. Why cyber security is a key challenge in the continent? Because when we look at the negative impact in term of economic cybercrime cost 10% of Africa GDP sorry, let me... You put on Channel 1. Thank you, welcome to Minister of ICT of Namibia. Today we are going to discuss Cyber Diplomacy in the Africa complex. Why the subject is important is for the reasons. The first, we are seeing lot of progress on digital economy in the African continent. We estimated by 2025 the digital economy will generate approximately 180 billion dollars.
But we are facing also several challenge. One of the key challenge now depends digital economy, it is cyber security, cybercrime. Why it costs 10% of African GDP. We need to overcome to this challenge. We have several orientation for that. First we need to build the capacity. We needed to put in place the key regulatory framework. We need also to collaborate because cyber security is not in one country. It is at the country level, regional level and world level.
Through this, there is a new concept, evolutive concept. It is called cyber diplomacy. This address intersection between cyber security and international relation.
Today we are going to discuss this concept what key achievement and what is opportunity for Africa to be part in this world discussion, global discussion on cyber diplomacy. As you know, it is a new concept.
Today I have the honour to moderate this panel. We were excellency on our Minister of African communication and technology of Namibia. I will have Mrs. Tereza for the cyber expert and (?) Namibia and parliamentarian network. I will ask Mrs. Beyza, Minister of technology at UNDO and Katherine Getao at the Diplo foundation.
We have five distinguished presenters and panelists to present all across Africa and all female. Not gender balanced but gender disparity.
It is ever (?) On cyber diplomacy. We have several understanding, before we start our discussion I would like to ask each of our panelists one minute understanding on cyber diplomacy. I will start with Minister.
>> Thank you, good afternoon to everybody here, live from IGF in Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, and all listeners and viewers online, participants. Very happy to be discussing this important aspect of signer diplomacy in Africa, looking at multistakeholder engagement.
In my small definition I think cyber diplomacy touches on the ability of either states or multistakeholder stakeholder actors, whether it is intergovernment organisations, to freely talk about challenges that come with cyber security matters and ability to converge to try to handle them. I'm talking about skills, investment of financing, the ability to actually share cooperation between countries when one country is unable to handle cyber incidents. (Tereza) and think it requires cooperation to have cyber diplomacy to handle the challenges ahead.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you, Tereza.
>> Thank you, very important conversation. Signer diplomacy is how do governments handle new topics that have emerged on the agenda in recent years and how they kind of defend their interest in Cyberspace. In this respect I would like to stretch the link to capacity building Madam Minister has brought up.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you.
>> Thank you, Dr. Mactar. I think all has been said. It is coordination between governments whereby we want to make sure our people are safe on issues of cyber security and also making sure that we have we can promote a friendly relations, especially on the signer space. Thank you very much.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you. Mrs. Katherine.
>> KATHERINE GETAO: Good afternoon colleagues, it is a pleasure to be here. I think cyber security is a field that allows us to not only mitigate risks in cyber security and signer crime, but also to exploit the huge emerging tech opportunities for developing countries. We have seen that developing countries have really taken up this technology in social areas, like social media as well as in technical and innovation areas. It forms a framework for collaboration between states. Between single state and the private sector, who innovate, own and manage the technology and Civil Society, who are the advocates for emerging issues. And gives areas we focus such as emerging terminology, norms and culture we adopt as globe, managed areas of conflict, the developments of international law that keeps us all in check and enables to collaborate on very important issues, which you all mentioned, which is capacity building.
So I would say Cyber Diplomacy is a broad field to build a peaceful, productive and safe Cyberspace.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you very much. Let me go now to Mrs. Beyza.
>> BEYZA UNAL: Thank you. I completely agree with the other speakers. Coming from the UN side Cyber Diplomacy entails diplomatic tools and strategies to address issues that relate to the Cyberspace in general. I could entail treaties, norms, rules, principles or certain standards.
The whole idea is really to understand what type of guardrails necessary in order for states to work together and to be able to mitigate risks that emerge in Cyber Diplomacy.
You mentioned cybersecurity and cybercrime. It could include relation matters, confidence matters, capacity matters, managing threats, as I mentioned. So the topic is really, really broad.
Cyber diplomacy takes place within states and the topic itself includes not only the state to state relations and how to relate state to state relations including prevention of state sponsored cyber attacks but can focus on frameworks to combat non state actors, cybercrime TT is a good example.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you. I think from the five panelists we have a very good example of Cyber Diplomacy.
And all definition is related to collaboration, capacity building, negotiation, normal, standard and advocacy. Now I will stay with we were let me see, Beyza. Because the one issue on cyber diplomacy is low participation of African country on the international negotiation. We can have example of United Nations government dealing with this issue.
Since 2004 we have only eight country selected in this discussion, in this group. Very low, compared to the challenge of the continent. Beyza, is officer of technology division and has been with the UN a long time. Have you give a global picture of Cyber Diplomacy at the international level, as well as participation on Africa and challenge faced by African country in this global discussion related to Cyber Diplomacy. Over to you.
>> BEYZA UNAL: Thank you, yes, sure. So I can focus on the international space and security elements, the pillar that we focus on in the UN system, which covers UN office for disarmament, affairs mandate. First I can mention a little of the evolution of how discussions have evolved within the UN context on Cyber Diplomacy issues. Believe it or not, the first resolution actually on cybersecurity was in 1998. It's been a long time. From 1998 onwards we had seen a instead involvement of states. So actually the discussion started only in number of states interested in the topic.
Now we are seeing inclusive space for all countries to raise their voice on the topic. So from 1998 onwards we had six group of governmental experts meeting. Basically means that the number of states involved were limited, around 25 states or so. We also had two open ended working group meetings. The two open ended working group meanings, meaning it was open to all countries. It was inclusive intergovernmental, multilateral discussion.
Each meeting add up to previous work in the space. For instance, in 2015 states agreed to set up non binding norms of responsible state behaviours. These are quite important because they provide the guardrails of what is acceptable in cyberspace and what is not acceptable.
From 2015 to today, the discussion about norms is how to implement those norms and whether there are more norms that are necessary, whether the norms should be binding in nature. So there is this great evolution we have seen from states.
The last open ended working group, which is the current open ended working group, started in 2021. It is going to be until 2025 that it is running, so July 2025 is the last time that it will hold its session. It had many achievements so far. I think those really relate to the African countries.
First of all this group focuses on the capacity building element. In one of the annual progress properties that was adopted by consensus, it acknowledge and recognise that capacity building is part of confidence building measure.
So if you want to actually address threats, if you want to address state to state relations and build confidence, we also need to build capacity. The draft has a capacity building subtheme as well that the Chair has put together. One of the elements, that is a concrete achievement from this work, is it sets up a points of contact directory, that is states assigning diplomatic and technical experts. They gave us the names and we created a directory of that in order to facilitate communication between states in case of a cyber incident. In case they would like to share information with each other, but they don't know who their counterparts are.
Around 111 states have signed up to the directory. There are many African states also a part of that POC directory. We would like to increase these numbers, so we are reaching out to developing countries specifically for them to nominate names for us. But the points of contact directory was established in 2023 2024. So only in one year we were able to get 111 states signed up to it, so that is really a good achievement.
You also asked me how to increase the participation of African countries in these meetings. It's always been a challenge. One of the things the chair has been doing is that in the working group meetings, we are putting them in hybrid format, where teleconference is established. That really is all about connectivity and inclusivity. Even if you are in the room, you can hear what is happening in the room. It is not being in the room, I agree. So we are reaching to countries that has the capacity, that has the funds to be able to provide us the funds so we can fly in countries from least developed states to developing countries and so on.
Ireland, for instance, has really been at the fore front on providing those funds in order to ensure better participation from developing countries in these meetings. There is also outside the UN there is a movement that several countries are funding, and where delegates can come and speak at these sessions. Thanks to that Woman In Cyber Security Initiative we were able to get 50% participation speaking roles in the open ended working group discussions.
So it is not perfect. We are putting all the efforts in place to ensure developing countries and their voices being heard and we are doing everything to develop the stronger diplomatic presence of those countries are there, thank you.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you very much for this global picture. I'm sure the Minister hear you. We will see how we can increase African participation in this negotiation.
Now I'm going to give the floor to my dear friend, honourable Minister Ama, one of key Ministers in the continue enemy. We are very proud of the work you are doing at national and continental level. We work together and I see a lot of progress in Namibia and your progression on the African digital agenda.
My position at the national level, if there is any initiative on Cyber Diplomacy, or you plan to have initiative in the future?
>> NOZIPHO MXAKATO DISEKO: Thank you. Thank you to Beyza for giving us a run down on how the role of multi lateralism is important in achieving cyber diplomacy. I can almost liken it to corporations that exist in the physical world. The corporations of Interpol in radiation to police agencies. Trainings for countries that might have advanced technology versus others. I think that is similar to what we are trying to achieve with multi latteralism as level toward Cyber Diplomacy.
Coming back to your question, Mactar, in Namibia we have tried to start for the right foundations. Cyber security measures are moving so fast, so quickly that sometimes countries, especially developing countries, cannot catch up quickly in terms of ensuring the right legislation is in place, ensuring it has the right experts and the right equipment and software because of funding and competing interests in country.
In Namibia we have done one of two things. One, we have tried to put down the right foundations of legislation. We have come up with a cybersecurity strategy that will run until 2025 to coincide with the working groups, a timeline until 2025 and looking to 2030. It is important because our strategies come with an implementation plan, so the cost implementation plan so there is a commitment from government to put funding in place to implement the strategy.
We have a cybercrime bill, currently before cabinet before the national assembly in our parliament. Hopes by next year we will have a cybercrimes law to govern all cyber matters in the country. Thirdly, I would like to mention here, we have successfully implemented a Nambian computer response team. This is very important because we just experienced a cyberattack two, three days ago. In fact, I was on my way to Riyadh when the cyberattack happened. A telecommunications company and our ministry of health.
But thankfully because of an (?) We established and costed and funded towards the tune of 20 million Nambian dollars, they were able to spring into action and now the situation is under control. A lot of this money went not only to capacity; it went to a lot of equipment, which many times costs a lot of money and software. Unfortunately for a country like Namibia, where we are in a state of emergency and experiencing our worst drought in 100 years there, are so many competing interests. Many are unable to channel money towards when things like this hit as opposed to a state of emergency, which many countries are experiencing.
So this discussion around truly Cyber Diplomacy in a multilaterism approach to prioritizing funding around cybersecurity matters is important. It is an important discussion between countries. It is no secret that the attacks are coming from cyberhacking organisations in global north attacking global south countries. How do we ensure we put countries put correct safeguards in place with funding they don't always have, to ensure their critical infrastructure is protected.
I'm talking about telecommunications, water infrastructure, electricity grid infrastructure, which could literally cripple developing countries. So this is some of the activities we are doing in our country, but we know too well we are still not at the level we want to be at.
Because if the attacks become frequent, which they will become frequent, in 2023 Namibia experienced 2.7 million cyberattacks. Thankfully, we are able to contain majority of them and did not do too much damage on our institutions and our economy. But we are seeing the cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated. The hackers are becoming smarter in the way they target our critical infrastructure. We just do not always have the necessary funding to wield them off. Thanks for the question, Mactar. Hope I have painted the picture.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you very much of you. This is a very comprehensive response. We are fully right. We need this discussions between global south and global north issue about these attackers.
You are right about several policy put in place in the country to fight the cybercrime. Let me go back to Tereza to Katherine.
You have long experience in Kenya as representative diplomacy group. For you, what are key challenge and opportunity for African country in the Cyber Diplomacy discussion?
>> KATHERINE GETAO: Well, thank you for thank you very much for that question, Mactar. I have been listening to my fellow panelists with interest.
Now I took part in three United Nations group of government events. 2015, 2017 and the Covid one that spread from 2019 to 2021, because of the challenges. I would say that the developing countries, even though there were a few countries represented, there were about three countries per group. Although, over the whole period, there were around eight countries.
But the contribution was very significant. First of all in 2015 we were sort of disinterested participants because we had the big boys, big girls in the room. They had very clear interests, but Africa came in often as moderating because we were just looking at the issues.
The other thing the WEOG was born from the 2017 group, even though there was no consensus in that group. There are 11 countries that met that said, we need to allow the whole world to participate in this dialogue, because there is no country in the world now that does not have cyber activities in its economy, in society, in government. And therefore all countries should have a chance to participate in global policymaking.
This is even more true for Africa, because we know we have a very young population. 65% of our population is young. They are very digital. They have grown up with this technology. They use it all the time. If I think of Kenya, we use this technology from morning to evening. From something as simple as paying for a basket to health. Health systems is managed on mobile. To our money. So every part is affected.
When we either receive cyberattacks from inside or outside the country or when we lose opportunity. For example, we have never been able to spread technology in the whole world the way you have Visa and Mastercard and others. There are certain realities in the global field, which means African technology is not spreading worldwide as it should, so we lose opportunities
So that effort of developing countries, Senegal, Egypt, Kenya to say no. The whole world is important. As I will say, even as I am participating in this meeting now using teleconferencing which means there didn't have to be a huge investment. So collaboration and working together we need to make cybersecurity on our continent does not have to be expensive. We can meet and use this technology in a more cost effective way.
So I think there are huge, huge opportunities for Africa. That is where I'd like to focus, even as I appreciate the importance of mitigating and defeating the risks posed by cybersecurity and cybercrime.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you. I think we understand the challenge faced by African country, to be practical about negotiation. And you provide also some takeaway for reflection.
We learn from the Minister, global picture as a national level at international level as well as opportunity. As Member of Parliament of Malawi, what role do you see in this discussion?
>> Thank you, as parliamentarians we have a crucial role that we play. Especially in coming up with policies and regulations and legislation, as well as on the issue of governance. As members of parliament we are mostly left out and executives will take up these issues and maybe have negotiations with other nations, leaving us out as members of parliament.
But when we want to come up with legislation, we want to know what are issues that have been agreed upon, what have neighs agreed upon so we know coming up the legislation it should be in line with those negotiations. So as members of parliament, we belong to different committees. I believe that if we are able to use this committees as for instance, the international relations committee, the ICT committee, together with the defence committee. Maybe they trade committee. We should be able to come up with proper legislation which will be able to for different countries to make sure we are able to learn from other country. For instance, what is Namibia doing on issues of cyber security. What is Zambia or neighboring countries doing so when we come up with legislation, it should be in line with what our neighbors are having.
We may come up with legislation, for instance, on Malawi, on cyber security, but when we go to Namibia we check their legislation. It is talking differently than in Malawi. For instance, talking about cybersecurity, most issues are not happening internally but outside Malawi. In that instance we want Namibia to help. How can we come up with this? We should be able to come up with the legislation, which will be can be maybe from both sides, something that will wait from both sides.
If something happens in Namibia, we should cooperate. We talk and say this has happened and we have noted this is coming from your country, help us so we can maybe keep these issues of cybersecurity. So I believe it is something that cannot be done by one stakeholder, but we need to work together with the executives, with CSOs and every government and organisations to make sure we collaborate and come up with the best for Africa.
If we work in isolation, if we work maybe the executive works on its own and legislators works on their own, we will not be able to achieve what we want to achieve.
So from my side, I believe we have the ball in our hands. We are the people that come up with the legislation. We have to be proactive, we have to be together in coming up with the best for Africa.
We believe that as members of parliament, you have mentioned about uplink. We are not only talking about one country in Africa. We are all countries in Africa. With that, we believe we are representing the whole part of the continent of Africa, so we should be able to work together and make sure that every Member of Parliament, as we have come here, we have learned something, we have discussed this issue. We go out there, share with our colleagues what can be done, what should be done, what can, we as legislators take home and work together as Africa.
Otherwise, I think from my side, that is what I can say. But we are very ready to come up with the best legislation. Namibia has mentioned they have come up with the best legislation on the same, so we should be ready to do that, thank you very much.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you very much for that. I think you can start the discussion now. You highlighted importance and cooperation is the key now in this Cyber Diplomacy space.
Now I will go to Tereza as global forum for cyber security expert, you have a lot of initiative in Cyber Diplomacy across the world. Also you work with several organisation like UN economic commission for Africa. Can you highlight some key initiative, huh? And their impact in the continent and also what you plan to do if you initiate on this initiative for next year, to support better African countries.
>> TEREZA HOREJSOVA: Thank you for the question. In your interim, Mactar, you have mentioned a scary number in terms of how much percentage cybercrime costs Africa, 10% of GDP. That is not a nice number.
At the same time, we can observe that many digital projects that are being implemented in Africa, cybersecurity is still not as much at the focus as it should be, so there seems to be a little bit of a disconnect.
If there is something we can do as GFC, Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, we will do it but how. We are a global organisation now, over 200 members and partners from various stakeholder groups. We have governments, we have Civil Society, academia and the community. As you mentioned our colleagues as stakeholders in covering this issues, it is key; it is not just a question for governments.
To zoom in a little bit more, what we felt in the last year is it is not us in the headquarters in The Hague to tell what countries need in terms of their cyber capacity building. We are trying to decentralize and have more demand driven to cyber capacity building, which practically happened through the creation of GFC regional hubs. In the context of this session, I, of course, need to highlight the regional hub we have for Africa, whose director is Mactaria Dali and (?) At the conference is working for hub.
What we are trying to do on the regional level is help connect the dots a little more and see if we can practically contribute to better match making, less duplication of efforts. Because the hub can kind of be those eyes and ears on the continent and pass the message further to the global community, to implementers and donors. Because very important work we are trying to do at the GFC also at the regional level is to work more with the donors so that they align their efforts.
Because something we have been hearing from not only Africa, but many other continents, is donor efforts are not coordinated. They are often ad hoc. They are not complementing each other as, yeah, efficiently, as they could.
So that is a little bit on the context. But the bottom line is, everything we do comes down to cyber capacity building and cyber capacity building is connected to another issue, which is very simple and practical but also the hardest one. That is the question of financial resources, because much more is needed.
One concrete action we are trying to do in this respect is through efforts of so called global efforts on this, GC3B, taking place in Ghana last year and the next in Geneva in May. There is an ACRA call where we try to encourage global community to do concrete action, which also by doing includes the question in looking more resources and also understanding that cybersecurity is really linked to geopolitical resilience and development of countries in question.
So another concrete, you know, points I would like to mention, especially as you have organised this question, is the MOU, the memorandum of understanding we have signed with UNECA and looking to complementing the efforts in however way it makes SAENSD add value.
I'm also very happy when Beyza mentioned the Women in Cyber project. It is one of the projects we believe immersion does the magic and we have been with many women including Africa to get them involved in the working group. I will stop here.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you very much and look forward to full cooperation next year and establishment of the cyber security center and look how we can encourage cyber diplomacy for the continent.
Let me open the floor for the first round of observation. Don't be hesitant. We are (?) Here. Want to take the first round for question? Check online if we have a question. Okay, introduce yourself in the question, yeah. Microphone for him, please. We don't hear you. Hello.
>> Hello, good afternoon, everybody. All the points has been raised so far. Actually I'm happy with the points raised so far. The question is like this. Since African countries are dependent on technology providers, this means we have been shaped or influenced by (?) Actors including technology companies and foreign governments. What is Africa really doing to liberate themselves from this (?) Messages and policies because I want us to differentiate between collaboration and (audio difficulties)
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you, another question. It is a new subject. You have to ask us understand better.
>> Thank you very much. My name is Francis Dereje from the regulatory from Kenya. Very interesting discussion from panelists. My question is about the need to balance between the need cyber policies are between
>> MACTAR SECK: Micro
>> How do you balance between need to safeguard national security but also engage different countries to collaborate on this cyber diplomacy matters? Where do you draw the line, thank you.
>> MACTAR SECK: I think this discussion is for the Minister. All right. Let me check online. Do you have someone on? You finished?
>> That is it.
>> He's finished.
>> MACTAR SECK: You have the floor. Tereza, you can speak. Tereza. Let me go back to the panelist. After I will come back to you. Is there any other question here? All right. All right, Minister, I give you the floor to answer the second question. The first one, I think anyone can provide input.
>> Thank you very much, Mactar, for the question on the balance between national security and collaboration. I think I can liken it in terms of existing security cooperation between various countries. When it comes to, for example, cooperation of countries around Interpol and military exercises of one country being conducted in another country, of course one would hope that you don't compromise your ability to deal with any so called enemy, should there be an attack on your national security infrastructure.
But I think there is much more value in countries then sharing best practices and learning from one another, especially when there are no hostilities.
I think we can replicate the same around cybersecurity matters, perhaps look at ways in which countries can try to strengthen their cybersecurity systems by allowing a so called more advanced country to test their systems and possibly look at other ways in which to strengthen them.
I think that is the best way to do it, to do it when there is no time of crisis. When actually you have the ability to handle the situation, to do proper crisis management when there is no real threat, but you do the necessary exercises to continuously test.
It would be a tragedy for a country like Namibia to believe it has the best cybersecurity systems, then one day comes a real threat and we don't. I think I would rather know we don't have the best systems, because we actually tested upon the best, who also believe they have the best security systems, and we can test them.
But also wanted to add that, in addition to cooperation with countries, it goes beyond national security matters. It also goes with legal matters. Imagine a hacker who has done significant damage in a country by hacking critical infrastructure, siphoning amounts of money, or putting the country's national security at risk. And this person is apprehended in Malawi. It would be best to have a legal instrument between Namibia Malawi. Either they are prosecuted and serve sentence in Malawi or there is a level of cooperation for this cybercriminal to come to Namibia and face music in Namibia's prosecution courts and prisons.
I think those are some of the cooperations that go beyond just infrastructure and goes really around cooperation between our two countries. That if there is a cybercriminal in Malawi, Malawi must claim and face the law in our country.
Those are ways to cooperate without necessarily having question of putting our national security at risk.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you very much. For the first question I think anyone can provide input. Let me start by Beyza for the first question.
>> BEYZA UNAL: Sure. For the first question, I think the importance here is focusing on a multi facetted approach for self sufficiency. The question was about how to decrease dependency to other actors and states.
So I think one way of looking at it is really strengthening regional cooperation and also empowering local capabilities, so it would be important to create a cyber ecosystem at the national level, for instance. Developing a robust Cyberspace infrastructure at the national level, but also regional and sub regional levels with countries that are trustworthy, that the country itself trusts. I think should be able to easily cooperate with each other.
Another important element of that self sufficiency and link to creating that cyber ecosystem is really the setting up the training and the education that is necessary for cyber professionals and training new next generation of cyber professionals.
There are non state actors NGOs, I shouldn't say non state actors, they are NGOs, academic organisations that can help with that capacity, to help with that training. So it doesn't have to be coming from another government or country or representative. It could come from the multi stakeholder community, which is the good part of that discussion today. Like the role of the multi stakeholder community.
But it really all starts with how does a state prioritise its cyber related matters. Could we talk about critical infrastructure. There is no definition of a critical infrastructure. Every country has different infrastructure for them to be named as critical. We, for instance, go to Singapore for signer security fellowship we hold there for developing countries, where Singapore is the UN. What Singapore says is the infrastructure is crucial for Singapore. For some countries it may not be, right.
So it is important at the national level, while setting up those national policies, to identify what are the priorities what are the infrastructure considered critical. And in those infrastructures, what are the networks that needs to be protected. Not all of the networks need to be protected under one critical infrastructure setting as well.
So we need to kind of triage which elements of that needs to be protected as well. Then I think under that you need to also establish layers of protection around data protection laws, for instance. Lastly, I would also say for international cooperation, you can be self sufficient but still relying on other countries. In a global world it is important to establish which clear boundaries in areas to share information for cooperation purposes.
If you could be able to do that as a state, then it becomes also easy to rely on countries and the areas you would like to rely on and be self sufficient in other areas, thank you.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you. Katherine, you want to add something?
>> KATHERINE GETAO: Yes, please. You can lower my hand. So on the first question from Dr. Yohannes, yes, it is a concern that when you are totally dependent on the developed world for your technology, obviously you have to follow norms and standards created by those technology providers.
So I would say there are three areas, which I believe Africa still has a chance to assert itself. Not only as a consumer of technology but also somebody who drives technology.
First is that cyber diplomacy, participating in the development of international policy, which will also affect and control these globalized companies.
So part of the reason why Africa should really be involved in cyber diplomacy and international cyber making policies is to ensure that the cyber making policy is coherent with needs of Africa. Secondly, I think there is continental technology that is coming up. This is really a chance for Africa to put its money where its mouth is. And even have a preference for technology, African technology that is appropriate for our country, that has been locally developed, that will create jobs for young people in Africa.
This includes I think several countries have tried to promote open source approaches to technology development. It hasn't been very successful, but I don't think we should give up. We should be moving towards an area where we are more in control of technology we consume.
I think Africa has the largest advantage of the largest youthful population. People who are read and available to have capacity built and become major players. Not only in Africa but globally, in supporting cybersecurity, innovating systems and in creating the future, even in adoption of new technologies.
So if we have a strategic approach to technology and not just a passive consumer based approach, I believe we will address your issues.
The only issue I would add on the second question is the issue of trust. It is impossible for countries to work together if they don't trust each other. So among cyber diplomacy efforts, there must be trust building efforts to make sure that countries can trust each other when they need to work together on solving issues which are sensitive to their national security. So I'll stop there, thank you.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you. Okay. Go ahead, Tereza.
>> TEREZA HOREJSOVA: Briefly because what Katherine said resonated to the first question. If a country anywhere is dependent on one donor, be it private sector actor or one government, it is a vulnerable position to be in. That is why, again, you know, back to the point I made at beginning of the session, investing resources in cyber capacity building is our global responsibility.
It is not a smart approach if donors count on THERs to step in. That can cause messy situations and kind of safer for everybody if more actors are involved in providing resources and if they communicate with each other to provide resources based on how the recipient countries define their needs, because they know what they need. They don't need to be told what they need.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you. Dereje, you have the floor.
>> Thank you, I was not allowed to speak previously, so thank you for the chance and the floor. Very excited to hear the story of Namibia, the whole of Minister, the picture and initiative in Cyber Diplomacy arena. They success fully implemented different strategies, even to combat and say the national 2.7 million attacks were really success fully contained, because they really implemented the cyber diplomacy strategy for the national level.
We know that cyber diplomacy is about governance, collaboration and digital rights in freedom and also an issue for technical negotiation.
Minister, I think your experience will be a lesson for the rest of the African countries. We have shortage of skilled human capital in this emerging field. How did you manage to bring this skill (?) So you incorporated all this essential cyber diplomacy confidence on board so your national sovereignty is protected.
So that would be a good lesson for the rest of the African countries. Thank you, Mactar.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you.
>> Good afternoon, I'm Serena. My question is directed to Katherine. Having experience as government present to be at the negotiation table, and as you know that, I think only south Africa, Kenya, Mauritia and Egypt are active in these UN norm setting, what do you have as initiative converting our ambassadors or existing diploma to cyber diplomacy and more important bridging gap from New York to Geneva and the whole African union. What kind of capacity building strategy we should drive to ensure that with our limited resource, we are catching up with the rest of the world, thank you.
>> Thank you, serene.
>> MACTAR SECK: Wait. Give him the micro.
>> I have switched off my mic.
>> MACTAR SECK: Wait, please. Go ahead.
>> Thank you for giving the floor. My name is Isadir from Chad and Society For Intended Governance, I have been trained at (?) For intended governance fellowship, integrated by my esteemed founder. Can you please clap for them. She has been able to turn over 1,000 African, intended governance. So my question is material focused on capacity building as foundation. What role can international partnership play in integrating cybersecurity and how can African nation approach such partnership diplomatically.
>> MACTAR SECK: That is the last for capacity building, you can go.
>> Thank you very much. Also try to be brief because I know we will soon have to end. What the GFC can offer is depends also on how many members and partners from the continent we have. So there's, of course, many African countries that there are already members of the GFC and many African organisations that are partners to the GFC. Not many. If we also get more on board, we can try to bring more voices of the African priorities in signer capacity building to global audience and encourage international cooperation you have mentioned.
I would suggest Dr. Martin has joined us, because he can tell you so much from the African point of view. We can kind of leverage the needs of the continent further, so I hope it is helpful for this stage. I have to mention partnership in the GFC, it is for free, yes. It is not like a paid partnership. No, no, no, no. We do encourage to have more on board to kind of help us push the mission.
>> MACTAR SECK: Okay, Katherine, for the first question, Katherine.
>> KATHERINE GETAO: Thank you very much, Mactar. So thank you for that question, serene. The countries that participated, I think there are eight over the years, so there are a few more than the ones you mentioned, such as Senegal was also there, Ghana and others. So how can we leverage on the existing meetings?
Firstly, I think there are people who are making efforts. GFC, who have just told us what they do, have done a lot of training, especially at the regional level. The Diplo Foundation supported by Jim 8 (?) Have been training regional bodies and AU to make sure diplomats because in many cases, for African countries, you can't afford to send a fresh person. So it is usually the in country diplomat who is already in the UN mission of that country who participates in that process. If they are not well versed in cyber issues, of course they will be handicapped. Many of them are also quite overloaded with working many committees at the UN.
So continued capacity building and support of the diplomats who are already at the missions could be an important strategy. And this doesn't always have to be done face to face, which is expensive. It can also be done through online trainings and course, which they can follow.
We have also been trying to influence the foreign service academies, which they have in various countries, and get them to take up these kind of capacity building activities. Whether they are drawing on resources which have already been done by GFC or Diplo Foundation, or whether they are supported to develop bespoke courses, which are relevant.
Foreign service are already there so it is a matter of building capacity for diplomats who are coming into the area of service for Cyber Diplomacy.
The third thing I will mention is there usually has to be a lot of collaboration between the technical agencies such as the sets and cybersecurity agencies. Some of the ICT agencies in country, both in public sector and private and also the diplomats who are going to represent the country in these processes.
So supporting the in country agencies to bring them together to build trust between them means you will have higher quality representatives participating in these global processes, because they can also consult. If they know their colleagues are home in the technical and diplomatic sphere, depending who is representing the country, they are quickly able to get the kind of backstop support that they need as they participate in global processes.
So those are just a few of the suggestions that I can make that would help us quickly get up to speed and to participate more effectively and even more aggressively in international processes.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you very much. Any more before we conclude?
>> Thank you very much. From my side, I think as parliamentarians, we are speaking more about capacity building, as wants to be capacitated on information on how to rightly handle the issues. This is a new thing that has come up. As parliamentarians we have to be aligned with what our role should be, especially when we are coming up with legislation. So need more capacity building sessions to make sure that we are in line we are aligned to this, as well as we should be able to have the skills on how we can be part we can be part of this Cyber Diplomacy, thank you.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you, I give the floor to the Minister to answer your question and the final matter before we conclude.
>> Thank you, Dr. Mactar and the question by Dr. Yohannes, thank you. You asked how Namibia in the meantime has been able to defend off some of the cyberattacks, especially ones we experienced last year and of course the one we are now able to handle that just came up with the largest telecommunication company.
Well, the first was to ensure we have the right legislation in place. Like I indicated we have the cybersecurity strategy, which outlines everybody's role, from public sector actors to private sector actors to Civil Society. And where that money will be coming from.
At this point in time, it is mostly coming from Treasury, but we are hoping to find alternative ways to get the necessary funding to get systems in place to support our efforts. Secondly, we have at our National University orf Science and Technology, we have a department of informatics and computing and a four year degree course on this. That has increased the capacity in country of cybersecurity graduates and experts to, one, be able to be deployed in public or private sector and have this capacity.
I may also add we are not yet satisfied because the cybersecurity space is constantly changing. We need more and more experts. Even with ones we are graduating, we need more. But we also need those that are able to handle the ever changing landscape, which means we need more that will be working and others that will be continuously studying to ensure they are constantly capacitated to handle these instances.
There is more to be done. It is a continuous process. Like I said, investments and requires actively prioritizing, we will put X amount of millions to ensure the necessary skill set exists and ensure we are able to mitigate any cyber incidents.
Finally, I would like to thank UNECA and all partners for convening this discussion. But I would like to emphasize truly when comes to multislateralism and global south conversation about financing of cyber security interventions we must look at various factors why countries are not able to prioritise cybersecurity and put funding in place and put forth with universities with experts. This comes down to the ability of those countries to service some of their international financing loan, which attract high interest, more than any other countries on the planet, and the ability for these countries to prioritise. Because many times they are repaying loans and supposedly investing in areas that matter to protect their critical infrastructure.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you, Honourable Minister. We are at the end of this session. For takeaway, we are aggregating the discussions that Cyber Diplomacy the key objective for global security, the one aspect of cybersecurity. Also to promote safeguard in the cyberspace, something we discussed, as to how to safeguard Human Rights. Because we have to link back to cybersecurity and human right.
For that we following the several discussion, we can have some key recommendation. First we need to put in place the right strategy, like what Namibia is doing now. Also we have to foster international cooperation, international collaboration to increase participation on Africa in the global discussion on the cyber diplomacy.
Second said recommendation, capacity building is the key. We need to build the capacity of all actors, starting by policymaking, the parliamentarian, local judicial, all people involved in this digitized specialty for capacity to be built.
Another point is we have to build trust. We have talked about international cooperation. Without this, it will not work. We need to build trust at the national level first, continental level.
We need to make this collaboration between private, personal and public partnership private and public sector. We need to cooperate together to put the right efforts between us. Because we need to also double up and understand it is very important to understand in term of cybersecurity. It is some key takeaway from this meeting, this session. I would like to thank all the panelists for their very good insight. And also I think you learn a lot from them. And thank you again for the panel and level of cooperation. Thank you also for your active you are very dynamic. It is a new subject, we understand. I think for the next session we'll get more and more education about the subject. Thank you so much and see you later. Let's have a group picture, thank you. We invite to have a group picture here.