The Minister of Digital Economy and Telecommunications of Côte d'Ivoire, Roger Adom opened the first edition of the Cyber Africa Forum on Monday, June 7, 2021 in Abidjan. On the occasion, the authority revealed that Côte d'Ivoire has recorded 20 billion CFA francs in losses related to cybercrime in the last ten years. “If you look at the last ten years, the amounts affected reach 20 billion CFA francs and that's huge,” Roger Adom, sponsor of the event, told the press. He noted that all citizens are confronted with the virtual world every day, whether in rural or urban areas. For Africa in general, Franck Kié, commissioner general of the Cyber Africa Forum, reported that cybercrime cost Africa a total of $4 billion in 2020, and cybercriminals' interest in the continent will only grow due to the increasing digitalization of trade and economic activities as well as the development of the cyber threat. Experts estimate that global spending on cybersecurity will exceed $170.4 billion by 2022 and the number of Internet users in Africa is expected to reach “one billion.”
The challenges of computer security in Africa

The development of the digital economy, information and communication technologies are now at the heart of the economic model of multiple sectors and are also becoming essential in our private lives. As a result, issues related to Cyber Security, Cyber Defense, and Cybercrime increasingly represent major challenges for our businesses, organizations, and states. No member state of ECOWAS is immune to the phenomenon of cybercrime and its negative political, financial and social impact. According to Roger Adom, “it therefore seems indispensable and crucial to identify and understand the risks we are facing in our states whose development challenges no longer need to be presented.”

Under the theme “cyber risk at the heart of Africa's challenges”, this forum on cybercrime issues aims to bring together the actors (public and private) that make up African economies around cybersecurity issues. For States, awareness-raising is a computer security issue. It is within this framework that ECOWAS launched its cybersecurity agenda for a holistic and coordinated approach with its Member States to improve cybersecurity and effectively combat cybercrime