Togo was highlighted as an example at the Global Conference on Cyber Capacity Building GC3B 2023

The Global Conference on Cyber Capacity Building (GC3B) held in Accra from 28 to 29 November 2023. The event, co-organized by the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE), the CyberPeace Institute and Ghana's Ministry of Digitalization and Communications, aimed to strengthen the cyber resilience of developing countries. Simon Melchior, CEO, Asseco Nigeria attended the event alongside the team from Cyber Defense Africa , a public-private partnership between the Republic of Togo and Asseco Group.

During the two days of activities structured around panels, sessions and interactive exchanges, the participants were urged to invest in cyber resilience, but above all to cooperate to enable secure and sustainable development. Indeed, as the opening speeches of the event pointed out, among the decision-makers and players in cybersecurity there are already the skills, the visibility and the examples to follow. All that is needed now is to cooperate.

One such example is Cyber Defense Africa, a company born of a public-private partnership between the Republic of Togo and the ASSECO Group. Guest speaker on the panel “Not all about the money: How low-income countries can strengthen their cyber resilience”, alongside eminent players such as the Director General of Togo's National Cybersecurity Agency (ANCy), Commandant Gbota GWALIBA, the Director of Ecobank Togo, Souleymane TOURE, World Bank cybersecurity expert Anat LEWIN, Simon MELCHIOR shared the success story of the creation of Cyber Defense Africa, a model partnership between the Republic of Togo and the ASSECO Group.

The ANCY Director General underlined the importance that Togo attaches to the digital economy as a focus for development.

“The knowledge economy is the future for us, and in this respect it was essential to secure Togolese cyberspace in order to encourage both foreign and local investors”, said ANCY Director General Commandant Gbota GWALIBA.

“The project began with an initial investment of 3 million euros, 2 million euros contributed by the Republic of Togo and 1 million euros by ASSECO Data System, and a loan of 7 million euros from Ecobank Togo. CDA is unique in that it has both a SOC (Security Operations Center) and manages Togo's national CERT. The project began in January 2020, the SOC became operational in September 2020 and CERT.tg was launched in February 2021. Being both a CERT and a SOC has led to a number of synergies and economies of scale. The SOC is a paying service that generates resources that finance the activity of the national CERT, which is non-commercial. This combination of CERT and SOC services made it possible for Ecobank to finance the project. The YTD loan was taken out in December 2019 and half of the loan has already been repaid.” Simon MELCHIOR

CDA provides the full range of cybersecurity services: security audits, vulnerability testing, 24/7/365 security incident management, real-time incident handling and response, cyber intelligence, security solution integration, consulting and training.

Souleymane TOURE, Managing Director of Ecobank Togo, reminded the audience that financing the project was not at all straightforward from the outset, given that the project was a greenfield project and the borrower was a digital start-up with no tangible assets to pledge.

“We also agreed to finance the CDA project without a sovereign guarantee from the Togolese Republic, by pre-financing revenues contracted in advance. Now, more than three years later, the loan is half repaid, the company is growing and we can see that it has been a success. It's a model that can be replicated by any developing country.”?

The World Bank's cybersecurity expert, Anat LEWIN, agreed, saying: “We are pleased to see that a public-private partnership model seems to have succeeded in Togo. This could be a source of inspiration for other developing countries”.

The CDA project has created around forty direct jobs and hundreds of indirect jobs in Togo in the innovative and highly skilled field of cybersecurity. This is a significant creation of value that contributes to the country's development.

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