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The Accra Call

for Cyber Resilient Development

An Action Framework

What is the Accra Call?

The Accra Call for Cyber Resilient Development is the outcome document of the inaugural Global Conference on Cyber Capacity Building (GC3B) that takes place on 29-30 November 2023 in Accra, Ghana under the theme “Cyber Resilience for Development”. The event is hosted by the Ministry of Digitalisation and Communications of Ghana and co-organized with the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, the CyberPeace Institute, the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum.

The Accra Call aims to stimulate global action to elevate cyber resilience across international and national development agendas as well as promote cyber capacity building that supports broader development goals, effectively serving the needs and priorities of developing countries. Drawing from existing shared commitments and ongoing relevant efforts in international fora and processes, the Accra Call articulates a set of non-binding, voluntary, direction-setting actions that can:

Strengthen the role of cyber resilience as an enabler for sustainable development.
Advance demand-driven, effective, and sustainable cyber capacity building.
Foster stronger partnerships and better coordination.
Unlock financial resources and implementation modalities.

Why does it matter?

We are witnessing exponential growth in digital development investments along with increasing reliance of development approaches on digital tools and solutions, while the demands and needs for cyber capacity building are also growing. It is a crucial time to put cyber resilience forward as a key element in securing relevant investments across development portfolios and ensure that cyber capacity building is designed and implemented to support broader sustainable development goals.

Who is the Accra Call for?

The Accra Call aims to inspire and mobilize all relevant stakeholders from developing countries, donors, development finance institutions, international and regional organizations, the private sector, the technical community, civil society, academia, and philanthropic institutions to rally behind these issues and use actions of the Call that are relevant to them and pursue them within their mandates and processes.

How was the Accra Call developed?

The rationale for the Accra Call is to be an actionable outcome document of the GC3B. As such it was developed to reflect the GC3B themes with an effort to involve diverse stakeholders from different geographies and perspectives as a multi-stakeholder result through targeted consultations, side-events in the margins of international conferences, and broader informal exchanges in the run-up to the GC3B.

Summary of the Accra Call for Cyber Resilient Development: An Action Framework

1 Strengthen cyber resilience as an enabler for development

Integrate cyber resilience into sustainable development strategies as a cross-cutting priority;
Mainstream cyber resilience across international development programmings;
Accelerate the integration of the cyber capacity building community with the development field;
Strengthen and promote cyber resilience knowledge and skills among international development workforce.

2 Advance demand-driven & sustainable cyber capacity building

Use cyber capacity building to tackle existing and emerging CCB gaps across policy, technology, legal, regulatory, and institutional frameworks, customized to the local context;
Invest in capacity building that enhances the cyber resilience of significant economic sectors and public service delivery;
Consider the cybersecurity skills gap and its gendered dimension across cyber capacity building;
Commit to further professionalize the cyber capacity building community of practice;
Accelerate efforts to improve the measurement of cyber capacity building results.

3 Foster stronger partnerships and better coordination

Foster the leadership of developing countries in coordinating cyber capacity building efforts;
Promote public-private partnerships as well as inclusive and equitable market incentives to enhance cyber resilience
Utilize existing platforms to better coordinate and deconflict cyber capacity building financing and actions;
Encourage greater information sharing and relationship building between the cybersecurity and development stakeholders on cyber threats, incident response and remediation.

4 Unlock financial resources and implementation modalities

Identify and employ the full range of financial streams available to weave sustainability into the financing of national cyber resilience activities;
Diversify program implementation modalities and utilize all available options to strengthen cyber resilience capabilities;
Systematize South-South and Triangular cooperation in international cyber capacity building actions.

Support the Accra Call

The Accra Call is open to voluntary endorsement by any stakeholder that aligns with and supports the objectives of the Call and is interested in contributing to the realization of its Action Framework through their work individually or in cooperation.

Also, any stakeholder is invited to make their public pledges on how their organization will concretely take forward any specific action of the Accra Call.

Stakeholders can endorse the Accra Call without making any specific public pledges on their concrete plans to implement the actions.

All stakeholders are invited to affirm their willingness to promote, pursue, and coordinate efforts on the Accra Call through its endorsement and/or through pledges by submitting the form in the “Support the Accra Call” page.

The launch of the Accra Call will take place at the GC3B, and its final text will be published on the GC3B website along with the names of the first endorsing and pledging organizations. Both endorsements and pledges will remain open also after the GC3B as the Accra Call community is foreseen as an inclusive, multi-stakeholder platform having the inaugural GC3B as its starting point.

Endorsements

Endorsement expresses the non-binding, voluntary, public support for the Accra Call’s objectives. Endorsing organizations are committed to supporting and contributing to the realisation of the Accra Call through their work and are willing to engage in its multi-stakeholder community to share their experience with fellow endorsers. The endorsement does not entail a formal signatory process, but interested organizations authorize the GC3B to include their name and logo in the list of the Accra Call’s endorsers in the GC3B website.

Pledges

Pledges are voluntary commitments on any of the Accra Call actions that an organization is willing to publicly make in support of the Call’s realization. Pledging organizations are ready to announce how they concretely plan to implement any action of the Accra Call and engage in its multi-stakeholder community to share their experience with fellow endorsers. Pledges can take many forms, for example the launch of an initiative; the undertaking of research, or the creation of a toolkit; the improvement of an internal practice or the introduction of a new process, that demonstrate the alignment with and pursuit of the Accra Call’s Action Framework. The pledges do not entail a formal signatory process, but interested organizations authorize the GC3B to include their name and logo along with their specific pledge and the action it relates to in the list of the Accra Call’s pledges in the GC3B website.

How will the progress on the Accra Call be monitored?

Progress on the realization of the Accra Call will be reviewed every two years at the next iterations of the GC3B. Between each conference, the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise will foster the multi-stakeholder ‘Accra Call’ community bringing together all its endorsers and pledging organizations, along with any other interested stakeholder in promoting effective, sustainable, and inclusive international cooperation for cyber resilient development in the digital age. The endorsers will be invited to share their experiences from their pursuit of the Call’s actions within their respective mandates. This process will allow the drawing of lessons, successes, and challenges to inform the collective follow-up on the Accra Call at the next GC3B.

If you are interested in supporting the Accra Call, please visit the “Support the Accra Call” webpage.