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OAS Co-organizes Workshop on “International Security and Diplomacy in Cyberspace”

The Organization of American States (OAS) and the ICT4Peace foundation today began a “Workshop on International Security and Diplomacy in Cyberspace” in Bogota, Colombia, in which participants from 26 countries and several international organizations will discuss a number of cyber projects, including those promoted by the European Union, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OAS, the United Nations – including its office on Drugs and Crime and the International Telecommunications Union, the Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (AP-CERT), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The workshop, organized with the support of the Ministry of Information Communication and Technologies (MinTIC) of Colombia and the Governments of the United States and Canada, will run from November 18 to 20, and is designed to provide a clear explanation and understanding for cyber policymakers and diplomats in the Americas of the multitude of cyber initiatives in execution and development around the world.

The opening ceremony of the event was presided over by Diego Molano Vega, the Minister of Information Communication and Technologies of Colombia; Neil Klopfenstein, the Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism (CICTE) of the OAS; and Daniel Stauffacher, the President of the ICT4Peace Foundation. Carmen Sylvain, Ambassador of Canada to Colombia, Ian Gill, Second Secretary of the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Colombia, and Michele Markoff, Deputy Coordinator for Cyber Issues of the US State Department also participated in the opening ceremony.

Referring to Colombia’s comprehensive national Information and Communications Technology (ICT) plan, “Plan Digital”, Minister Molano said “cyber security is an integral discipline that requires careful coordination between the Ministries of ICT, Defense, and Justice to develop an effective cyber security policy. The administration of President Santos has recognized that to close the development gap and improve government services, we need to and indeed have made many accomplishments in developing infrastructure and applications to protect ICT users.”

For his part, while describing the impetus for the event, Executive Secretary Klopfenstein stressed that “cyber security is only going to grow in importance as an issue of international security and diplomacy. While it is no longer a new issue, countries and international organizations remain in the infancy of examining it as an object of international relations and security. Thus we gather here to advance the discourse and engender informed perspectives on international cyber diplomacy.”

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-502/14