Launching the ISAC chapter for Senegal

In November 2022, ACRC held its first conference on information and best-practices sharing in Dakar. Financial-sector participants confirmed the urgent need to strengthen the sector against cyber threats with a new collaborative and capacity-building approach, moving beyond traditional technology and governance-based approaches.

Practitioners said the whole sector was ready to move towards collaboration and information sharing, but needed guidance and a code of conduct. They also asked for help to manage information sharing between peers and communication with the public, to raise top-management awareness of threats and crisis management, and to build the capacity of technical teams on incident response and threats.

ACRC organised a conference on 23 February 2023 in Dakar for more than 50 invited participants from the Senegalese financial sector and its key stakeholders. It presented the project and its two flagship initiatives (the African cybersecurity information and best-practice sharing community and the Cybersecurity Programme for Microfinance & Fintech) and signed two partnership agreements the day before. ACRC acts as facilitator of the chapters.

The Information and Best Practices Sharing chapter for Senegal was officially launched. A group of CISOs from banks and microfinance institutions volunteered to launch the chapters for Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire, and two partnership agreements were signed.

The chapters give practitioners a national forum whose local requirements are brought to the attention of the African financial community through ACRC, so that appropriate mutualized solutions can be set up.

Participants agreed that regulators and supervisors play an important role as facilitators, that regulation is to be completed where missing, and that information and best-practice sharing must also reach small and medium-size institutions.