What changed
e-Crime Bureau and the Smart Africa Secretariat signed a memorandum of understanding in Accra, Ghana, on the sidelines of the 15th Africa Internet Governance Forum 2026.
The agreement covers three areas:
- building cybersecurity skills and cooperation among government, business and international partners;
- strengthening governance, risk management, critical-infrastructure protection, and legal and policy alignment;
- developing technologies to protect Africa’s digital ecosystem.
The deal follows e-Crime Bureau’s 2026 restructuring into a global cybersecurity consultancy with hubs in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Its Africa hub is based in Accra and focuses on talent and skills development.
Why it matters
This puts cybersecurity cooperation into a clearer working frame: people, rules and tools. That matters because a shortage of skilled professionals cannot be solved by buying more software, while software alone cannot fix fragmented governance or mismatched laws.
Smart Africa has already made cybersecurity a continental priority through its 2023 Continental Cybersecurity Blueprint and the African Network of Cybersecurity Authorities, a consultative body for cybersecurity development. The new partnership gives e-Crime Bureau a formal role alongside that wider effort.
The agreement also fits the Bureau’s new geography. Its Europe hub handles standards, certifications, regulatory practice, research and technology partnerships. The Middle East hub leads business development and service delivery. Accra becomes the centre of its African skills work, linking local capacity-building to the firm’s wider international operations.
The practical test will be what follows the signing. The agreement specifies no funding, implementation milestones, participating countries or binding obligations, so its value will depend on whether the partners turn the three broad commitments into programmes, training and deployable protections.
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