LOME, TOGO
4-8th September 2023

With the advent of cybercrime and the appearance of Cybercrime-specific legislation in the ECOWAS region and in Mauritania there is a clear need to integrate a course on cybercrime in the regions training programs for judges and prosecutors. Experience suggests that in most cases, judges and prosecutors encounter difficulties in coping with the new realities of the cyber world. Particular efforts are therefore required to enable judges and prosecutors to prosecute and adjudicate cybercrime and make use of electronic evidence through training, networking and specialisation. 

While substantial actions and steps were taken at regional and country level to ensure access to proper specialized training of the judiciary and prosecutorial services, including with the support of the capacity building projects, there is still a significant room for improvement in this area.

The ECOWAS commission and the Council of Europe are partnering, through the OCWAR-C and Glacy+ projects to support the judicial authorities to tackle this need through global capacity building initiatives, by delivering judicial training courses on cybercrime and electronic evidence in the ECOWAS region and in Mauritania, by training pools of judges, magistrates and prosecutors to become trainers themselves on these matters.

Therefore, some 20 judges, magistrates and prosecutors actively participated in the 5 days training in Togo, to the introductory Training course on Cybercrime.