On September 20-21, 2023, the Observer Research Foundation America in partnership with the Ministry of Defence of North Macedonia – Military Academy “General Mihailo Apostolski”, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, and Metamorphosis Foundation hosted an in-person Global Cyber Policy Dialogue in Skopje, North Macedonia. This two-day multistakeholder meeting brought together over 60 participants from government, civil society, academia, and the private sector from across the Western Balkans. A principal goal of the meeting was to foster genuine and open dialogue among stakeholders from different sectors and backgrounds.
The full agenda for the event is available here.
A full summary of the meeting can be found here.
On the opening day, attendees engaged in a table top exercise and a robust donor coordination session on cyber capacity building in the Western Balkans. On the second day, substantive discussions focused on defending and responding to cyber attacks, United Nations Norms implementation and cyber diplomacy, strategies for countering disinformation, lessons learned for enhancing intragovernmental coordination, and continuing to strengthen the region’s contributions to UN and international cyber discussions, including the UN Open-ended Working Group on the use of ICTs in the context of international security and the Ad Hoc Committee on Cybercrime.
Welcome remarks were provided by Slavica Grkovska, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Good Governance Policies of North Macedonia; Vladimir Anchev, State Secretary at the Ministry of Defence of North Macedonia; Maartje Peters, Head of the Taskforce International Cyber Policy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands; Mitko Bogdanoski, Dean at the Military Academy "General Mihajlo Apostolski" Skopje; and Azir Aliu, Minister of Information Society and Administration of North Macedonia.
The meeting built on results from a prior, in-person roundtable in Skopje in June 2022, and an earlier online session in April 2021. This event was part of a larger Global Cyber Policy Dialogue Series organized by ORF America and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands which seeks to convene regional dialogues to address key cyber challenges, strengthen multistakeholder networks, and increase coordination of regional capacity building initiatives. These meetings are intended to complement ongoing international-level cyber norms processes, such as the United Nations Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) and the Ad Hoc Committee on Cyber Crime.
