“Indeed, no country can tackle the world’s current challenges alone: from wars and other conflicts, climate change, poverty, inequality, lack of respect for human rights,  food insecurity, unemployment –  International cooperation is vital if we are to overcome these challenges,” he stated.

Dr Bawumia said this in a keynote address read on his behalf by the Minister of Public Enterprises, Joseph Cudjoe at this year’s launch of the National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) in Accra yesterday.

NCSAM is an annual event aimed at promoting capacity building and awareness creation to ultimately improve cyber security and strengthen our national cyber resilience.

Themed “Regulating Cyber security: A Public-Private Sector Collaborative Approach,” the launch of the NCSAM, also saw the signing of Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) for co-operation between the country and representatives from Rwanda and Mozambique on cyber security matters.

Dr Bawumia noted that Cyber security development everywhere was a shared responsibility, and that enhancing understanding of the provisions of the Cyber security Act, 2020 (Act 1038) and building synergies among all relevant stakeholders to ensure compliance with them was critical.

As such, he indicated that creating greater awareness of the law and the relevance of cyber security regulations among children, the public, businesses and the government, whilst highlighting the need for public-private sector cooperation must be made paramount.

“As businesses and individuals, we must develop the needed cyber security consciousness to help mitigate cybercrimes, which according to statistics are caused by human actions in about 90 per cent of the cases,” he added.

Dr Bawumia said the MoUs would provide for joint capacity building exercises and training in the relevant areas through the sharing of expertise.

The Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful in a statement read on her behalf by the Deputy Minister, Ama Pomaa Boateng hinted that the Ministry, through the CSA, had identified priority areas including licensing and accreditation which were necessary for ensuring a secure cyber ecosystem.

“We need to ensure that those we engage to protect our systems have the requisite competence to do so. The CSA is collaborating with stakeholders to provide a framework for the licensing of cyber security service providers, accreditation of cyber security establishments and accreditation of cyber security professionals and practitioners,” she stated.

The Acting Director-General, Cyber Security Authority (CSA), DrAlbertAntwi-Bosiakoimplored stakeholders to invest in the sector by dedicating“a minimum of between 15per cent to 25 per cent of their ICT budget to cyber security if we should make any meaningful and sustainable progress in addressing our cyber security challenges.”

He emphasised that the CSA was not a revenue generating agency, adding that “at best, the Authority as a security sector institution, can be described as a revenue protecting agency in view of the CSA’s mandate to protect critical systems and networks both in the public and the private sector.”