Ghana : A Case Study in Strengthening Cyber Resilience

The case study of Ghana demonstrates that forward-looking investments and policy initiatives based on international best-practices can go a long way in boosting cybersecurity capacity in developing countries.

Ghana has significantly enhanced its cyber resilience, with an increased capacity to detect, respond to and recover from cybersecurity incidents. The country also enabled its cybersecurity ecosystem to become more autonomous by alleviating its dependency on foreign actors, and even became an international champion for cybersecurity, hosting the first Global Cyber Capacity Building Conference (GC3B) in November 2023.

Ghana’s results provide important lessons for other developing countries. In hindsight, three key success factors stand out:

• Strong governmental commitment to enhancing cybersecurity, notably by senior leadership such as the Head of State and the Ministers. It helped secure funding and align the government’s approach to cybersecurity.
•  A whole-of-government model for cybersecurity governance. While responsibility for cybersecurity was clearly attributed to a single office with deep technical expertise, a broad range of ministries and public agencies were involved in an inclusive manner.
• Multi-stakeholder engagement and community building. The government consulted and worked with many external organizations, while emphasizing a whole-of-society approach. Awareness raising activities directly engaged 275,000 adults and 136,000 students in activities and events, with outreach centred around a widely publicized cybersecurity month each October.