Between 2014 and 2024, the World Bank supported 64 countries worldwide in building the foundations of cyber resilience. Establishing and enhancing Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs)—the equivalent of firefighters in the digital realm—has been a cornerstone of the World Bank’s capacity building efforts.
Challenge
Cybersecurity risks are a major impediment to digital transformation, and to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) more broadly. From website defacements and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to personal data theft and ransomware, cybersecurity incidents can have significant economic and social consequences. As essential goods and services such as energy, banking, water, and healthcare become more reliant on digital technologies, the impact of cybersecurity incidents is increasing significantly.
Developing countries are particularly vulnerable because they often lack the institutional capacity and technical know-how to effectively protect the data that fuels their digital transformation, including the personal data of their citizens. CSIRTs, which support national stakeholders in detecting and responding to cybersecurity incidents, play a major role in enhancing overall cyber resilience and in building a national cybersecurity ecosystem. While most developed countries have established CSIRTs in each of their critical infrastructure sectors, many developing countries still lack a national CSIRT. According to the global Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), only five countries out of 22 in Western and Central Africa and 10 out of 26 in Eastern and Southern Africa have at least one operational CSIRT as of 2024.
Approach
World Bank support to help countries build the foundations of cyber resilience is holistic, focusing on developing national cybersecurity strategies, increasing cybersecurity skills, and establishing incident response capabilities. This work spans three pillars.
The first consists of technical assistance and financial support, leveraging World Bank instruments and co-financing to build the foundations of cyber resilience in developing countries. This emphasizes establishing and enhancing incident response infrastructure, developing national strategies, supporting the review and update of legal frameworks, building the capacity of national authorities, and growing the local cybersecurity workforce. Between 2016 and 2022, the World Bank organized a Global Cybersecurity Capacity Building Program that financed and supervised national cybersecurity maturity assessments in nine countries, including six in the Western Balkans. The assessments enabled the identification of key gaps in national cybersecurity ecosystems as well as the prioritization of the most relevant investments and policy reforms.
Furthermore, the World Bank has a key role in thought leadership: developing global knowledge products to identify and disseminate established and emerging best practices for enhancing cyber resilience. The World Bank aims to grow the evidence base for actionable policy advice through innovative research, data collection, guidance for policymakers, and practical tools for practitioners. For instance, in November 2023, the World Bank published “Hacking” the Cybersecurity Skills Gap in Developing Countries and Ghana: A Case Study on Strengthening Cyber Resilience. In 2024, the World Bank published a joint publication with FIRST entitled Digital First Responders: The Role of CSIRTs in Enhancing Cyber Resilience for Developing Countries.
Finally, the World Bank works through its convening and partnership capabilities, facilitating dialogue and community-building among cybersecurity practitioners across countries and regions. This includes the organization of thematic workshops, global forums, and study tours, often in cooperation with other organizations. For example, in November 2023, the World Bank co-organized the Global Conference on Cyber Capacity Building (GC3B) in Accra, Ghana, with other partners. The event was a first-of-its-kind gathering of over 700 leaders, CSIRT managers, decision-makers, and experts, and enabled the creation of new partnerships and facilitated peer-to-peer learning.
Results
Between 2015 and 2024, the World Bank supported 64 countries worldwide in building cyber resilience foundations. Establishing and enhancing CSIRTs has been a key aspect of World Bank capacity building.
In Bhutan, the World Bank provided financing and technical assistance to establish and operationalize the national CSIRT, BtCIRT, from 2015 to 2018. The CSIRT now significantly contributes to enhancing cyber resilience in Bhutan by providing expert technical support to key national stakeholders. Between 2016 and 2023, BtCIRT organized more than 20 workshops to build cybersecurity capacity in the country, handled around 1,200 cybersecurity incidents, and issued more than 600 alerts related to cybersecurity vulnerabilities and scams.
In Bangladesh, the World Bank supported the establishment and operationalization of a CSIRT dedicated to e-government, BGD e-GOV CIRT, from 2016 to 2020. Since then, the CSIRT has been successfully responding to cybersecurity incidents affecting the Bangladeshi government’s digital infrastructure, resolving 70 percent of all reported incidents within two hours. In 2021, the CSIRT also delivered 67 in-depth technical training sessions to over 1,800 civil servants.
In Ghana, the World Bank supported the setup and operationalization of the national CSIRT from 2014 to 2017, later integrated into the Cyber Security Authority. World Bank support helped expand a team of three civil servants into a national cybersecurity authority of more than 100 qualified staff. CSA and the national CSIRT raised awareness of cybersecurity risks to more than 275,000 Ghanaians and created a point of contact for reporting cybercrime that was used more than 50,000 times. This enabled Ghana to rise from 86th place for cybersecurity capacity globally in 2017 to 43rd in 2021, becoming the top-ranking country in Western and Central Africa, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
