Republic of Mauritius- National Cybersecurity: increasing capacity and resilience

The Minister of Technology, Communication and Innovation, Mr Deepak Balgobin, the Deputy Head of Mission, European Union (EU) Delegation to the Republic of Mauritius, Mr Michal Golabek, and other personalities were present.  

The event which is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Technology, Communication and Innovation and the EU Cyber Resilience for Development (Cyber4D) also has as objectives to identify and raise awareness on cyber threats, to provide for information assurance and resilience, to set up training and equipping Computer Emergency Response teams, building early warning, information sharing, and protecting critical information infrastructures.

In his address, Minister Balgobin, recalled that Mauritius was included in the project Cyber4D in 2018 in view to act as a model cyber resilient country and share its experience and best practices with other countries in the region. The project supports national strategies and enables local expertise and stakeholders to develop skills, knowledge, and resilience by concentrating on three major areas namely, policies, training and integration. 

He further said that internet is a major driving force that is helping in transforming the country’s development pattern and economic structure. Nevertheless, he cautioned, that with the dynamic evolution of the cyberspace, there exist associated sophisticated threats which can have adverse consequences. The security models of the past decade, he mentioned, are no longer useful adding that organisations should constantly develop capabilities for detecting incidents in a comprehensive framework.

He also underlined one of Government’s main objective which is to shape the right environment to make the internet more secure and accessible to the population and that his ministry is working on enhancing internet development by devising appropriate strategies and policies.

For his part, Mr Michal Golabek, congratulated Mauritius for its leading position in the African region in ITU Global Cybersecurity Index. This, he said, is evidence of the efforts of the Government of Mauritius to stay in the forefront of the digital economy. He also spoke of the longstanding partnership between EU and Mauritius and emphasised that EU considers Mauritius as a close ally and is willing to support the country in its endeavours to becoming a high income country.