AmCham Ghana, on Monday, March 2, held the U.S. – Ghana Digital Forum on the theme; Securing Ghana’s Cyberspace for Future Digital Growth.
The forum was an AmCham IT committee meeting with government agencies and other stakeholders to gain a better understanding of each other’s activities and perspectives in securing the country’s cyberspace.
Speaking at the event, Deputy Minister for Communications, Vincent Sowah Odotie (MP), shared some policies and programs that are being implemented by the government of Ghana to build a resilient and robust digital ecosystem.
He mentioned the government’s efforts in fighting cybercrime through capacity building in the judiciary, and the development of the country’s incident response capabilities with the establishment of the National Computer Emergency Response Team at the National Cyber Security Centre.
“Ghana has also ratified two international conventions namely the African Union Convention on Cybersecurity and Data Protection (Malabo Convention), and the Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention), making her the 5th country to ratify to both treaties,” Hon. Odotie added.
Other speakers at the event included AmCham Ghana President, Ayesha Bedwei, and the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, Stephanie S. Sullivan, who stressed the importance of developing new habits to deal with cyber threats.
The forum also featured a panel discussion on the Cyber Security Bill, fake news, the role of data privacy/protection in securing communication and data storage, the state of the nation’s connectivity infrastructure, and the government’s initiative to establish Ghana as a leader in ICT innovation in the sub-region by 2023.
The panel was made up of Mr. Owusu Bediako-Poku, Director of Operations at the National Cyber Security Centre, Mr. Kwaku Kyei Ofori, Deputy Director-General at the National Information Technology Agency, and Prof. Kwaku Appiah-Adu, Head of the Delivery Unit, Office of the Vice President.
The session was moderated by Franklin Asare, Country Director at Oracle / AmCham IT Committee Chairman.
Also present at the forum were executives from VISA, Uber, PwC, IBM, Emergent Technology, National Information Technology Agency, KPMG, Oracle Corporation, American Tower Corporation, National Cyber Security Centre, Office of the Vice President, the Bank of Ghana, and representatives from other AmCham member companies.
