International cyber capacity building – Global trends and scenarios 

By: European Union Institute for Security Studies, Collett, R., Barmpaliou, N., , 2022, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2815/346676

The recommendations are addressed to three main stakeholder groups: the EU, which commissioned this research; the broad international cyber capacity building community of actors engaging in CCB projects; and the GFCE, as the leading global coordination and knowledge exchange platform on CCB.

Recommendations for the EU: The EU should build on its CCB successes and lessons to date to develop a strategic, harmonised narrative for CCB that reflects on its different institutional priorities (such as development, security, digitalisation, trade), identifies where the EU best adds value within the growing range of actors, and defines criteria for its investment priorities both in terms of thematic and geographic areas. This process should go hand in hand with an analysis of the available financing streams and how these can be maximised to enable efficient and scalable CCB programming, in particular relating to mainstreaming cybersecurity across digital transformation initiatives and to establishing synergies with sectorial infrastructure projects. Given the EU’s complex institutional architecture, the report calls for a concerted effort to improve internal coordination amongst EU services and institutions as well as with Member States. To maintain a leadership role in the global CCB ecosystem, the EU should support further professionalisation of projects such as the EU CyberNet and strengthen global coordination efforts, including through the GFCE. Finally, further investment in knowledge tools and training of staff will be needed to improve the understanding and use of CCB in the EU’s external cooperation programming.

Recommendations for the cyber capacity building community: All organisations in the cyber capacity building community should prepare for the continued growth of the field by using approaches that can scale and by setting suitably ambitious goals. For example, the community should consider agreeing a global goal that all countries have in place basic, foundational cyber capacities by a certain date, receiving CCB assistance if they need it. To maintain the current rate of growth the community should better connect with parent communities, especially the development cooperation community, that are better resourced and could help scale CCB. Funding research and sharing project evaluations to build an evidence base of impact and lessons would support this. As the field continues to grow, coordination will become ever more important. Better coordination could be achieved by organisations improving their own internal information sharing, supporting processes for international coordination such as the GFCE and making better use of in-country coordination efforts in partnership with host governments. This will be part of a broader process of professionalisation that requires expanding CCB teams, bringing in specialist staff and making time for training.

Recommendations for the GFCE: The GFCE should enable the EU and the wider cyber capacity building community in achieving their goals and implementing the recommendations above. It should prepare for the continued growth of CCB with an onboarding process that helps organisations that are new to this field, or to the GFCE, quickly connect with others and understand where they can best contribute to and benefit from the network. The GFCE was the first organisation to propose global principles of CCB and it should build upon this by supporting the development of global CCB goals. Such goals and raised ambitions should be informed by research into the need for CCB, its cost and its impact, which the GFCE’s Research Agenda can support. The 2022 GFCE Annual Conference with the World Bank, the World Economic Forum and the Cyber Peace Institute is a key opportunity to better connect CCB with the development community and the private sector. Last, but not least, supporting coordination and sharing knowledge amongst CCB practitioners should remain the GFCE’s priority, notably by strengthening the regional liaisons and hubs, piloting local coordination networks in a few priority countries and sustaining the expansion of the Cybil Portal.

These recommendations together with more detailed proposals made throughout this report provide actionable steps that would accelerate the trends of growth and professionalisation, while narrowing the gap between the field’s aspirations for coordination and its patchy implementation. If applied, they would help shift the field of cyber capacity building from its current start-up phase to being an established field of international activity and digital transformation.