Guidance

CSSF cyber and technology programme lot 1: national and regional online safety campaigns

Published 6 July 2021

We are inviting proposals to deliver national/regional online safety awareness campaigns to either build on campaigns FCDO has already delivered or expanding into new countries.

Background

Since 2018, we have funded a public online safety awareness campaign in 22 Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean (Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago), Pacific (Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu) and Rwanda.

In each country, we have created locally hosted online safety websites, rich with advice on how to keep people and businesses safe from cyber-attacks, online abuse, dis/misinformation and fraud. In some instances, the website content was translated into local languages.

The website content was promoted through locally driven awareness campaigns highlighting the most prevalent and highest risks, as well as multi-agency workshops. In addition, a network of 150 volunteer, online safety ambassadors have been recruited to help instil local ownership of the campaign and ensure sustainability.

Our investment in the online safety campaign has been driven by our commitment to support implementation of the Commonwealth Cyber Declaration through which Member States have committed to promote public trust in the internet and digital inclusion for all communities without discrimination and regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age, geographic location or language. With the sharp increase in demand for digital services, following the coronavirus pandemic, this is particularly important.

Monitoring and evaluation has been crucial for assessing whether the project is having the desired impact of helping to improve online safety. Over 17 million people have been reached by the campaign with survey data indicating that 77% of people intend to or already have changed their internet habits and 67% of people are more confident online.

Proposal

We are now seeking proposals that will build on this existing work by:

• extending the campaign for a further year in those countries where we have already set up online safety websites: refreshing the content, running promotional campaigns on priority themes, and expanding and supporting the online safety ambassador network to deliver online safety events locally
• building capacity of national computer security incident response teams (CSIRTs) to independently oversee the delivery of awareness campaigns, education and skills training linked to FCDO’s Commonwealth CSIRT community project. Details of this project are available in this best practice guide, together with the promotion video and case studies. Minimising cyber risks to the public and businesses through public communications is a key responsibility of national CSIRTs and we are seeking to consolidate our support to the two projects in financial year 2022 to 2023
• ensuring campaign content promoting cyber advice is aligned with the messaging of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, specifically the online cyber hygiene behaviours promoted through the Cyber Aware campaign. This content should include measures to mitigate the threat of Ransomware attacks, which is an important part of our efforts to counter cybercrime. We are also keen to project our values by promoting digital rights (eg. internet access, data protection and privacy, etc). Relevant overseas Posts will need to be briefed on the project plans prior to implementation.
• ensuring robust monitoring and evaluation methods are incorporated into the project design
• proposing new countries to work with to promote online safety (excluding South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Brazil and Indonesia, which are covered by our Digital Access Programme), together with communication plans for implementation. For new Commonwealth countries, our plans to consolidate awareness campaigns under our Commonwealth CSIRT community project should be taken into account. The joint paper written by FCDO and the Tech Accord Group on cyber awareness in the Commonwealth may be a useful reference. Proposals for new countries should consider the priority regions highlighted in the Integrated Review: Africa and the Indo-Pacific (exemptions* and scope highlighted under lot 2 apply). Final country selection would be agreed with the successful bidder.

We expect work in new countries would involve:

a) sharing a best practice approach eg. through workshops with relevant national and local government departments/agencies, including or separately also with civil society to explain how a public online safety campaign is delivered, the types of issues that are covered (eg. ransomware), how impact is measured and examples of what can be achieved

b) subject to the country’s approval, offering to run a single online safety campaign before the end of financial year 2021 to 2022.