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IGF 2021 WS #166
Role of Civil Society in National Cybersecurity Awareness

    Organizer 1: Elizabeth Orembo, Kenya ICT Action Network
    Organizer 2: Kerry-Ann Barrett, Organization of American States
    Organizer 3: Nthabiseng Pule, Cybersecurity Capacity Center for Southern Africa

    Speaker 1: Basie Von Solms, Technical Community, African Group
    Speaker 2: Amadou A. Bah, Civil Society, African Group
    Speaker 3: Nagyfejeo Eva, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
    Speaker 4: Jenny Thorton, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
    Speaker 5: Kerry-Ann Barrett, Intergovernmental Organization, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)

    Moderator

    Basie Von Solms, Technical Community, African Group

    Online Moderator

    Elizabeth Orembo, Civil Society, African Group

    Rapporteur

    Nthabiseng Pule, Civil Society, African Group

    Format

    Debate - Auditorium - 60 Min

    Policy Question(s)

    Ensuring a safe digital space: How should governments, Internet businesses and other stakeholders protect citizens, including vulnerable citizens, against online exploitation and abuse?
    Roles and responsibilities in protecting against cyber-attacks: Which stakeholders hold responsibility for protecting national governments, businesses and citizens against cyber-attacks?

    Additional Policy Questions Information: 1.Cybersecurity practices and mechanisms:

    a.What are the good cybersecurity practices and international mechanisms that already exist?
    b.Where do those mechanisms fall short and what can be done to strengthen the security and to reinforce the trust?
    c.What are the requirements for a successful national cybersecurity awareness raising campaign? What role civil society could play to foster synergies and cooperation in the campaigns/programmes?
    d.What are the challenges civil society faces when coordinating with government and other stakeholders on awareness raising campaigns?

    2.Roles and responsibilities in protecting against cyber-attacks:

    a.Which stakeholders hold responsibility for protecting national governments, businesses and citizens against cyber-attacks?

    Cybersecurity awareness campaigns are an integral part of improving cybersecurity awareness. However, despite increased awareness campaigns by governments and private sector, many cyber users still do not understand how to protect themselves and their information within cyber space. One reason is that cyber users are unaware of possible cyber risks and threats that may occur. The second reason is that citizens, businesses and users within the public sector may be aware of relevant cyber risks but do not really understand the seriousness of such risks and the consequences if they do realise.

    The session is going to discuss the efficacy of national cybersecurity awareness campaigns and the role civil society could play to run successful campaigns. It will also explore the challenges civil society faces when working with the government and other stakeholders and seeks to identify the requirements needed to develop coordinated national awareness-raising programmes.

    SDGs

    9.a
    16.1
    17.17
    17.18


    Targets: This session looks at the roles of stakeholders in national cybersecurity cybersecurity capacity building efforts. In particular, it highlights the civil society to find out how it has worked to promote cybersecurity awareness.

    The role of cybersecurity awareness in development agenda is critical. For nations to develop, they need to protect the assets they have(including digital and tangible assets), promote safety within the citizenry to ensure trust for use for new technologies and innovation. Each stakeholder has a role to protect that part of the internet and technology they are responsible for. For this, users in their different scales of use need to be aware of what they need to protect, how to protect and why.

    Description:

    The session is going to take a debate format, mostly with interactions from the floor. It will start with a paper presentation, discussions from the panel to the presentation, then interactions from the floor. The presentation is meant to give the direction of the discussion. This will then add in to the constellations work on national cyber capacity building.

    Expected Outcomes

    1. Shared best practices to identify the requirements needed to develop coordinated national awareness-raising programmes.

    2. Identified gaps in national cybersecurity awareness and on how to mitigate them.

    We hope to have a hybrid model with both offline and online moderators who work together to ensure seamless interaction between the online and offline audiences and the panel. In the event that some of the speakers and organizers are online, we will have prior preparation sessions to ensure that they are familiar with the participation tools and that the tools are working properly.

    Online Participation



    Usage of IGF Official Tool.