Securing the African Continent: Cyber Diplomacy, the Malabo Convention, and Africa's Cybersecurity Governance in Plain Language

This plain language working paper makes accessible the core arguments of the companion technical paper "Fragmented Subnets: Cyber Diplomacy, the Malabo Convention, and the Architecture of African Cybersecurity Governance." It explains Africa's fragmented cybersecurity governance for readers without a technical background, using everyday analogies to illustrate why the Malabo Convention is underperforming, why regional cooperation is failing, and what genuine continental cybersecurity resilience would require. No prior knowledge of network security or cybersecurity policy is needed.