Abuja, 29th January, 2020. A two-Day validation workshop for a draft ECOWAS strategy on regional cyber security and cybercrime begins from the 30th of January 2020 in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.
The Workshop comes against the backdrop of the ongoing implementation of the project known as Organised Crime: West African Response on Cyber security and fight against Cybercrime (OCWAR-C) which is being supported by the European Union (EU) with Expertise France as its implementing agency.

Participants at the Workshop will review and validate the ECOWAS Regional Cyber security and Cybercrime Strategy which has been elaborated by Expertise France in close cooperation with representatives of Member States on the Regional Technical Committee (RTC).

Apart from strengthening cyber security in the ECOWAS region, the Workshop will also examine and review the comments received from the Commission and Member States on the draft strategy in order to finalise same while discussing the form and content of the Regional Critical Information Infrastructure Policy.
The OCWAR–C project aims to improve the resilience and robustness of information infrastructure in addition to enhancing the capacities of Member States’ stakeholders in charge of the fight against cybercrime over a four-year implementation period (2019 to 2023).

The first RTC workshop was held in November 2019, and in accordance with the resultant action plan, a first draft outlining the main proposed provisions was circulated for comments to the Commission and members of the RTC.

At the end of the Abidjan Workshop, the regional strategy document is expected to be finalised for submission to the ECOWAS Commission, EU Delegation in Nigeria and the ECOWAS Council of Ministers for adoption.