Pieter van den Berg

International Perspectives on NCSC-NL’s CCB Program

The core message of the provided transcript is that cyber capacity building succeeds when it creates durable local capability, trusted partnerships, and ecosystem-wide resilience rather than one-off technology transfer. Danny Jaspers opened by defining Cyber Capacity Building within the Dutch Cybersecurity Center as partnership with countries to help them become more cyber resilient through knowledge sharing, partnerships, and training. He framed the session around three blocks: international missions and lessons learned, collaboration partnerships, and sustainable cyber capacity building, with audience questions after each block and a broader Q&A at the end. Emilia Nghikembua, head of Namibia’s NCSC/Cyber Incident Response Team and the ICT regulator, explained why Namibia’s experience made the topic practical rather than abstract. When Namibia began developing its CERT, the challenge was not only establishing a national team but building the surrounding cybersecurity ecosystem. She listed the needs: specialist skills, incident response capabilities, governance, technical tools, credible threat intelligence, and partnerships. International cooperation, including the partnership with NCSC-NL, helped through operational guidance, knowledge transfer, technical support, and continued engagement. After about two years of operation, Namibia’s CERT now supports incident coordination, threat monitoring, information sharing, awareness, and connections to Southern Africa CERT, Africa CERT, and FIRST. Velimir Radicevic of FIRST positioned FIRST as an enabling layer above a living community of security teams, including NCSC-NL and Namibia’s CSIRT. He argued that cyber capacity building is at a crossroads: the issue is not only resource constraints, but a long-standing preference for efficiency over effectiveness. In his view, CCB has too often been treated as short sprints, when it is actually a long, complex, multifaceted, human-driven marathon requiring partners to stay present beyond budgetary cycles. Eefje of the Dutch Cybersecurity Center connected international resilience directly to Dutch and European resilience, while Pieter van den Berg of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs described cyber capacity building as one pillar alongside diplomatic responses to cyber threats and norm-setting discussions on state behavior in cyberspace. In the first substantive exchange, Emilia emphasized that focusing only on the CERT is insufficient: the whole ecosystem must be capacitated and resilient. She cited practical incident causes such as expired passwords and outdated SSL certificates to show why organizations beyond the national CERT need capability. Danny then referenced a February 2024 training mission in Namibia that began as a one-week visit by consultants but evolved into biweekly online advice and consultation. Emilia said this continuity was necessary because threat intelligence can become outdated quickly, and sustainable engagement is the only way to keep knowledge from becoming obsolete. The provided transcript ends around the point where Eefje begins elaborating on how Namibia’s experience also strengthens NCSC-NL’s own approach.