On 27 November, Anastasiya Kazakova, Cyber Diplomacy Knowledge Fellow at Diplo and Geneva Dialogue Project Coordinator, delivered a presentation on recent developments in the UN cyber negotiations and discussed practical avenues for African security teams to strengthen their engagement in cyber diplomacy. The session took place as part of the FIRST Good Practice Webinar Series (Season 4), a programme designed to explore how technical cooperation, information sharing, and diplomatic engagement can reinforce trust and operational collaboration among national and sectoral CSIRTs.
The series was courtesy of the FIRST Africa Regional Liaison initiative.
The Webinar Series, led by Lawrence Muchilwa, Africa Regional Liaison at FIRST, aimed to examine how cyber diplomacy is increasingly shaping effective CSIRT-to-CSIRT cooperation, as well as to identify the diplomatic and operational factors that enable trust, interoperability, and coordination among national CSIRTs. In doing so, the series also works to generate practical recommendations for strengthening regional and international partnerships in cyber incident management.
In her intervention, Anastasiya highlighted the key outcomes of the current UN Open-Ended Working Group negotiations and explained how African security teams can contribute more actively to cyber diplomacy processes. She emphasised the importance of bringing technical expertise into national deliberations on cyber norms, participating in international dialogue platforms, and using multistakeholder initiatives to support capacity-building and regional resilience.
The webinar also featured presentations from two additional speakers. Ellah Hamwaka, Incident Response Officer and former representative of Malawi to the UN OEWG on ICT security, shared insights from her involvement in shaping national positions on cyber stability, norms, and cooperation. Emmanuella Darkwah, Senior Manager for International Cooperation, drew on her experience participating in the UN OEWG on Developments in ICTs in the Context of International Security, highlighting the value of CSIRT perspectives in multilateral cybersecurity discussions. Together, the speakers underscored the growing need for stronger engagement between technical and diplomatic communities and stressed the potential for African CSIRTs to play a more influential role in shaping responsible state behaviour in cyberspace.
