Development of an African National Cybersecurity Strategy Development Guide (ANCSDG): Botswana context

Abstract

Botswana, like many other African countries, is undergoing a digital transformation. Whilst this transformation presents a vast amount of opportunities to greatly improve citizens' lives, there are associated risks. One of which is cybercrime. Cybercrime is a growing phenomenon that can not only disrupt businesses or personal systems but can also affect the national critical ICT infrastructure such as the supply of water, electricity, as well as business and government applications. Although efforts by the government have been made to secure the cyberspace through publishing a national cybersecurity strategy, establishing a cybersecurity incident response team, and adopting cybersecurity-related legal frameworks, a holistic approach to cybersecurity is still lacking and there is still a gap in terms of interoperability and shared understanding within the cybersecurity strategic environment. This research proposes the development of a semantic-based National Cybersecurity Strategy Development Guide (African National Cybersecurity Strategy Development Guide- ANCSDG). This ontology will help address the interoperability issues within the cybersecurity environment and it can also be used as a model for the development and implementation of the National Cybersecurity Strategy (NCS) in Botswana. The guide will be developed per the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) ‘s national cybersecurity development guide. The guide will cover six different components: Critical Infrastructure Protection, Governance, Cybercrime Reporting, and Intelligence, Risk Management, Regional and International Cooperation, Capacity, and capability building.