By: Rethabile Tsephe

The African continent, like the rest of the world, is getting into grips with the convenience of a digital future. Presently, African leaders  stand committed towards the digital economy and the digitalization of strategic sectors such as education, health, Tele-health, entrepreneurship, employment, peace and security, and good governance by ensuring the delivery of essential public services and establishing sustainable interactions between governments and citizens.

On the continent there are numerous successful digital stories that can be used and  be translated  in other countries to encourage the  promotion of a interconnected  economic growth and social development. Nonetheless, a known fact is the more digitalized and connected our economy, the more important it becomes to secure our systems in cyberspace.

As a result, the increase in internet networks, together with the increase in free trade movement simultaneously positions the continent for accelerated growth over coming years and renders African cyberspace governance a core issue of international foreign policy and international law. Where does the Pathways Towards Confidence come in effect?

In the recently published Research paper titled Pathways Towards Confidence: Priorities and Perspectives on African confidence building measures in Cyberspace, Mrs Moliehi Makumane effortlessly highlights core principles that the African continent should look into in reaching cyberspace hygiene.

Transparency being one of the fundamental objectives for African countries to reach, leaders in African countries need to be honest, transparent in their efforts to safe guard their cybersecurity efforts. This in my opinion will be the right step in the right direction for Africa to ensure the continent is well protected and will definately  put the necessary  pressure on African leaders to all be hands on deck with cybersecurity issues.

Reading further into the research paper, Moliehi continues to highlight the various Africa-relations between Africa- EU, Africa-China, just to name a few and one can clearly see how impactful confidence measures are necessary especially for the economic and ooprtunuties that Africa and Africans need to safe guard their livelihoods. [i] The pace of EU–Africa interaction accelerated rapidly in the 2020s with a new vision of Africa as a ‘a land of opportunities’, which places great emphasis on long-term positive economic and digital transformations, among others. West Africa is the EU’s largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa and the EU is West Africa’s biggest trading partner. In 2020, West African exports to the EU accounted for €22.4 billion. EU exports to West Africa were worth €25.8 billion.

In terms of sectors, West Africa’s exports to the EU consist mainly of oil and gas and food products. West Africa’s imports from the EU consist of fuels, food products, machinery, and chemicals and pharmaceutical products.

Pathways to confidence.

Though trust and honesty among African leaders may seem such a stretch. I am of the opinion that Africa is one continent that a lot of us look up to as a base for our existence, and socio-economic growth. Today, some African countries are under attack by  a full spectrum of cyber threats, cyber crime, attacks, espionage and other malicious activities. Often they don’t have the means to monitor and control their networks, which exposes them to risks that may affect their national security and economy.

As African countries increase access to broadband connectivity, they are becoming more interconnected and vulnerable to cyber attacks. It becomes critical to extensively reinforce  our human and institutional capacity to secure our cyberspace by building trust and confidence in the use of cyber technologies by African states and citizens.

[1] https://eucyberdirect.eu/research/pathways-towards-confidence