projects

Cybersecurity for refugees by refugees

Ongoing
A group of people sit at a desk
Start Date
Total Project Cost
USD 52,996.000
Country
Panama
Project Team
UNHCR Panama

Challenge

Displaced people are at high risk of exposure to mis/disinformation, cybercrime, and cybersecurity risks, due to the increased collection of identifiable personal information, data breaches, and targeted attacks. Capacity among humanitarians and displaced communities to mitigate these digital risks is lacking.

Solution

Develop an educational programme (available as a web app) to build the capacity of humanitarian actors, refugees, and migrants in the areas of cybersecurity, cyber threats, and digital protection. These cybersecurity champions will cascade learnings across communities.

Impact

200 humanitarian staff members and more than 1,000 refugees and migrants directly benefit from strengthened digital skills and awareness to prevent and mitigate online risks like fraud, extortion, phishing, and more, spreading skills and awareness more widely.

Project impact

400
individuals trained in cybersecurity awareness (including 108 forcibly displaced people)
10
refugees certified as cybersecurity practitioners
600+
displaced entrepreneurs' data secured through refugee-led marketplace

Other information

More than 10,000 multi-platform views of refugee-led content via cybersecurity content capsules developed as part of this project. Read more about the initiative in a Spanish-language UNHCR webstory.