Collective action and the provision of local tools to African youth are the two “specific challenges” facing Africa in terms of electronic security, said Senegalese electronic expert Ibrahima Nour Eddine Diagne at the opening of the sixth edition of the Security Days in Dakar on Tuesday.
Mr. Diagne, who is also the Managing Director of GIE GAINDE 2000, stressed the need for African states to “do things together” and give their “youth the tools we have here” in order to tackle these two major challenges in the fight against cyber-criminal attacks affecting the whole world.
According to him, the role of states is “difficult to define” because there is a “limit” to their “sovereignty” which does not allow them to be in a “position of strength” all the time.
“There are defensive and offensive capabilities (…). We are in a very complex world, and knowing the place of these states (in regulation) is very complicated,” Diagne noted, stressing that the notion of confidentiality “is slipping away.”
He was speaking at the two-day forum, which opened on Tuesday, in the presence of delegates from West African countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, a key sponsor of this edition, digital actors in Africa as well as civil and military government representatives.
The event, which aims, among other things, to promote a pan-African vision of digital trust and develop regional and international cooperation, has had a difficult start, according to its initiator, Sidy Mactar Aidara.
“At the first edition, we were just a hundred people. No one believed in us, but the time proved us right,” the founder of Kubuk Consulting, co-organizer of this 6th edition with the Senegalese customs, police and gendarmerie as well as the Ministry of the Digital Economy and Telecommunications proudly declared.
Hailing the “great success” of the 2018 edition in view of its “1500 visitors,” Mr. Aidara stressed the importance of the event but not without taking the opportunity to call on parents to “be vigilant about their children’s digital lives.”
Speaking in the same vein, the Secretary General of the Ministry of the Digital Economy and Telecommunications indicated that Senegal has been a pioneer on the issue and went as far as implementing the “National Cybersecurity Strategy 2022” (SNC2022).
According to Yoro Moussa Diallo, this strategy aims to achieve five objectives: strengthening the legal and institutional framework for cyber-security, protecting critical information infrastructures (CIIs) and government information systems, promoting a culture of cyber-security, building cyber-security capacity and expertise in all sectors and participating in regional and international cyber-security efforts.
Colonel Alioune Ndione of the Senegalese Customs said that, on the proposal of the Security Days, the state has created a “national school of cyber-security.”
Located within the National School of Administration (ENA), this “regional” establishment was inaugurated in November 2018.
The Security Days event, which ends on Wednesday, included in its programme several workshops based on “rich” and varied issues.
It also includes midday networking sessions: two activities that are supposed to make up the bulk of the programmes selected for the forum.
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