GLOBAL CONFERENCE ON CYBERSPACE

April 16, 2015 - The Hague, The Netherlands

Ladies and gentlemen, the world has embarked on a trajectory to which we have no known final destination. The Internet as it was first created has evolved into an unanticipated new reality for everyone, with great opportunities and painful challenges. The internet permeates every aspect of our social, cultural, economic and political life.

The third GCCS in Seoul focused on the issue of capacity building and the barriers of developing countries in progressing the issue of national cyber security.

Today and tomorrow we will discuss three critical areas: freedom, growth and security.

The Organization of American States has always promoted these tenants and embedded these in our founding charter in 1948, and subsequent conventions and juridical instruments on human rights, rule of law and integrated development.

The Internet is fast becoming a right and as such we must strive to ensure that as countries and peoples connect and utilize this indispensable tool for accelerating development and innovation that the policy makers and technical experts be adequately equipped to address the threats and implement required safeguards.

It is often difficult to encapsulate into words the challenges faced by our region as the experiences and reality of each country varies by many degrees from border to border, in both its level of development and economic reality. It often reminds me of an old saying that you “can’t really understand another person’s experience until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.”

In Latin America and the Caribbean alone there are approximately 250 million internet users making it one of the fastest-growing Internet and mobility populations in the world. The current landscape in Latin America and the Caribbean demonstrates that our Member States are subject to both threats emanating from outside and within the region and it is my firm belief that if the Latin American and Caribbean region is not equipped with the requisite tools to deal with the current threats and realities in cyber space, there will always be a black hole for cyber criminals to hide in.

Member States of the OAS have made significant strides in developing their policy and legal frameworks and building their technical capacities in line with the OAS´s Comprehensive Inter-American Strategy to Combat Threats to Cyber-security. Our Cyber Security Program which started in 2004 has assisted our Member States to establish incident response capabilities, strategy development and capacity building.

Despite its achievements to date the Cyber Security Program is often limited by how much it can achieve as a result of limited resources. The program functions only on the financial and in-kind contribution of donors (such as the Governments of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and more recently, Estonia and Suriname) and maximizes these contributions through strategic partnership with several private and public bodies to build our Member States capacities.

Although there have been great advances in the region pertaining to cyber security capacity building, the OAS/CICTE recognizes that the situational analysis of cyber security is quite limited in Latin America and the Caribbean. The OAS has been working not only to build a repository of cyber security knowledge that better depicts the region’s challenges but to also build innate capacity. Our work has also focused on exchange of information and best practices.

We strongly believe that international cooperation needs to be strengthened. We believe that we have to create meaningful partnerships between and within countries as well as with the relevant industry, private sector and civil society. I believe that the OAS as a multilateral platform has the trust, expertise and experience in the region and we stand ready to partner with and receive support from our global partners.

This is why the Organization of American States is a founding partner in the establishment of the Global Forum of Cyber Security Expertise (GFCE) which is formed to emphasize the need for more capacity building, exchanges of best practices, strengthened international cooperation, fostering partnerships and cyber oriented international law.

In closing I congratulate the Government of the Netherlands with the excellent hosting of this Global Conference on Cyber Space and I look forward to the concrete outcomes.