A delegation from Benin led by the Minister of Digital Affairs and Digitalisation, Mrs Aurelie ADAM SOULE ZOUMAROU, took part in the cybersecurity summit in Lomé, Togolese Republic, on 23 and 24 March 2022.
A delegation from Benin led by the Minister of Digital Affairs and Digitalisation, Mrs Aurelie ADAM SOULE ZOUMAROU, took part in the cybersecurity summit in Lomé, Togolese Republic, on 23 and 24 March 2022.
Co-organised by the Togolese Republic and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the Cybersecurity Summit brings together Heads of State and Government, private sector leaders and civil society leaders to hold a high-level dialogue aimed at identifying avenues for cooperation and coordination to address pressing cybersecurity challenges. The opening ceremony of the summit was chaired on Wednesday 23 March 2022 by the President of the Togolese Republic, H.E. Faure GNASSINGBE.
The high point of this first day of the summit was the adoption of the “Lomé Declaration”. In it, the Ministers in charge of digital affairs solemnly call on States to commit to better protection of African cyberspace, through “concerted action at international and regional level”. The idea is to “acquire effective means of diagnosis, control, protection and the fight against cybercrime”.
The Minister of Digital Affairs and Digitalisation, who led the Beninese delegation to the summit, spoke on the Ministerial Panel “How can cybersecurity issues be placed at the heart of public policy in Africa?” alongside her African counterparts. Mrs Aurelie ADAM SOULE ZOUMAROU shared Benin’s experience in cybersecurity with the audience: the adoption in 2018 of the Digital Code, which devotes an entire book to the fight against cybercrime and to cybersecurity; the creation and operationalisation of the National Information Systems Security Agency (ANSSI Benin); and the creation and running of communities, including training the Chief Information Security Officers of priority State bodies in the PSSIE and training those involved in the public expenditure chain in the secure use of digital technology, etc.
On the same day, the Director General of the Information Systems Security Agency (ANSSI Benin), Mr Ouanilo MEDEGAN FAGLA, took part in the expert panel “Identifying and implementing the key success factors for strengthening regional cooperation on cybersecurity”, where a Beninese initiative, the Hacker Lab, was showcased and praised by the other participating countries, which expressed the wish to draw inspiration from it.
The Lomé Cybersecurity Summit will also:
- Explore and assess the state of cybersecurity in Africa in terms of its five building blocks: legal, technical, organisational, capacity building and cooperation;
- Assess the state of cybersecurity cooperation at regional and global level and commitment to the AU Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection (Malabo Convention);
- Provide policy recommendations for consideration by African Heads of State and Government to ensure cybersecurity that meets the needs of the continent’s digital transformation, in line with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
- Present the Togolese model of public-private partnership in cybersecurity and of synergy between SOC and CERT resources, and propose concrete avenues for operational cooperation.
The summit came to an end on Thursday 24 March 2022 with the closing ceremony