On the occasion of the opening ceremony of the symposium on cybersecurity in West Africa, ECOWAS Member States were invited to finance strategies to combat cybercrime.

The symposium is held within the framework of the Ocwar-C project. It aims to contribute to the improvement of cybersecurity and to fight against cybercrime. At the opening of the proceedings, the Ivorian Minister of Digital Economy, Telecommunications and Innovation, Roger Adom recalled that no ECOWAS Member State escapes the phenomenon of cybercrime and its negative impact on both politically, financially and socially. Thus, several measures have been taken by Côte d'Ivoire to provide responses to the phenomenon of cybercrime. Proof of this is the adoption of a legal and regulatory framework supported by the law on the fight against cybercrime of June 19, 2013; the law relating to the protection of personal data of June 19, 2013, etc. For his part, the Ambassador of the European Union in Côte d'Ivoire invited ECOWAS member countries to get involved in the Ocwar-C project aimed at financing strategies to combat cybercrime. The said project is financed by the European Union to the tune of more than 5 billion FCFA and implemented by Expertise France. Lasting 48 months, it runs from February 1, 2019 to January 31, 2023.