Americas and Caribbean regional meeting 2022

It is in the context of regional cooperation, that the Secretariat of the GFCE, the Secretariat of the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE) which is the GFCE Regional Americas Hub and the Latin American and Caribbean Cyber Competence Center (LAC4EU), EU CyberNet Project organized the GFCE 2nd Regional Meeting in the Americas.

For this second regional meeting, the GFCE  hub for the Americas and the Caribbean region had the opportunity to gather 32 participants from 15 Member states. This meeting was held with the intention of discussing the role of the GFCE in Latin America and the Caribbean and how best to coordinate capacity-building efforts in the region and coordinate regional efforts more effectively. Additionally, the meeting served as an opportunity to introduce the progress of the GFCE LAC Hub, to discuss with participants the priorities for the future, and to introduce the GFCE and possibilities for involvement to key regional actors.

Additionally, the meeting set a starting point to continue the discussion around the different inputs on what could be the main angle of this region’s agenda for cyber capacity building. The region’s needs, workforce development and gender were among the issues standing out in the open discussion.

An additional outcome of the meeting was the opportunity to connect various dots in existing gaps in CCB, providing updates on various projects and providing a platform for exchange not only among the countries but also among stakeholders as the meeting had a good mix of government representatives as well as the tech community in particular. As an example, some projects presented were the CSIRT best practices project by the OAS.

Some of the main results included the opportunity to present the various CCB projects and implementers in the region and also to share global good practices that exist and that are being implemented in the region. This activity facilitated information sharing and provided an environment to promote greater coordination, collaboration, and networking opportunities among all cybersecurity stakeholders that were present during the event. Specifically, as it relates to the Caribbean region, we were able to open the dialogue on their various challenges and needs related to their cybersecurity issues.

The next step will be to draft the regional agenda and start a process around approving that, ideally with a buy-in from stakeholders across the region. This should feed into the global agenda on capacity building.