The West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), in partnership with Co-creation Hub (CcHUB), has held a Community of Practice Training on cybersecurity for civil society organisations. The aim of the training was to create a pool of nonprofit technologists who are equipped with the relevant cybersecurity capacities to support the work of civil society organisations.
The training was organised after CcHUB conducted a security vulnerability assessment of 28 civil society organisations across Nigeria and Ghana, and it revealed that the current crop of technologists in civil society organisations across the two countries are not adequately equipped to tackle the technical needs of the third sector. It was observed that the dearth of competent technologists in the third sector not only diminishes the desired impact of the work of civil society organisations but also placed them at risk of cybersecurity mishaps such as data breaches and identity theft.
The Project Coordinator of CcHUB, Anthony Sule, said, ‘Attacks are happening but we have very few people who address that. We do not have enough digital security professionals who work with CSOs. There are many reasons for that. One of them is that certifications in cybersecurity are very expensive and when people go through the expense of getting certified, they really just want to work with banks or enterprises that will pay top dollar’.
Also speaking at the training was the Head of the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Unit at WACSI, Franck Sombo, who said, ‘This training is critical because CSOs and civil society are lagging behind when it comes to technological advancement. With all the growing risks we are witnessing around digital tools it is important to build our tools and build our readiness and to be more responsive, creative and innovative to enhance digital impact so that we are not left behind’.
In their feedback at the end of the event, the training participants said that the training equipped them to solve problems and create innovative technology solutions to tackle issues faced by communities and civil society organisations in the area of cybersecurity. They said that the training was excellent in that it combined both theoretical and practical sessions and that the modules covered communicating impact, digital security, computer networking, data analytics, internet rights and politics, graphics design, user interface and user experience design.
Source: Modern Ghana
Photo source: Vivek Bisht
