Participants explored challenges and opportunities for building an inclusive, secure, safe and resilient cyberspace in the Southern African region around three pillars critical to stability and growth in the digital realm: sustainable development, peace and security and governance. The meeting featured speaker contributions on the three pillars and included opportunities for exchange with representatives from governments, businesses, civil society organizations and universities from Southern Africa and beyond. In total, over 70 attendees from twelve Southern African countries and nine countries outside the region participated in the dialogue. A video of the speaker presentations can be found here, and a summary of the meeting can be found here.

This event reflects the commitment of the governments of South Africa and the Netherlands to support regional cooperation in Southern Africa on cybersecurity, and is intended to serve as a precursor to a more comprehensive in-person conference to be held in South Africa in 2021. The dialogue is also part of a Global Dialogue Series being undertaken by the EastWest Institute, which aims to convene regional meetings to address capacity building around key cyber challenges and complement ongoing international cyber norms processes. The first meeting in this series took place in August 2020 and was focused on the Southeast Asia region.