11.4 CYBERSECURITY PARTNERSHIPS Whilst the national government has ultimate responsibility for leading systematic national cybersecurity programmes, securing cyberspace is a collective responsibility. Therefore, policy development and the elaboration of a national strategy should take into account the views and interest of all participants. The partnerships are local and international. 11.4.1 Public-Private Partnerships Government Departments and Agencies at all levels should form meaningful partnership with the private sector on cybersecurity because government alone cannot secure cyberspace. Public-private partnerships are vital as they:  Facilitate the exchange information on the development of new legislation and regulation between stakeholders;  Enable collaborative work and sharing of training courses that could help alleviate the severe shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals; and  Enable real time exchange of information about cyber threats and vulnerabilities. The communication channel is valuable for the national CIRT as the exchange complements the stretched national incident detection and warning resources. The ITU has identified that successful government-industry collaboration requires three important elements (ITU 2008a). These are: 11.4.1.1 A Clear Value Proposition Leaders of a cybersecurity programme should describe the programme’s benefits to government and the commercial sectors. For example, government requires industry to take steps to secure cyberspace because infrastructure vendors and operators provide capabilities that typically fall outside government’s core competencies, such as:  Expert knowledge of cyber assets, networks, systems, facilities, functions, and other capabilities;  Incident response expertise and experience;  Ability to innovate and provide products, services, and technologies to quickly focus on requirements; and  Design, deployment, operation, administration and maintenance of the Internet Conversely, the private sector benefits from the collaboration because:  Governments have the resources to offer owners and operators timely, analytical, accurate, aggregated, and useful information on critical infrastructure threats;  Governments have the legal tools to create an environment that encourages all companies to invest in cybersecurity practices and hence boost collective security;  The government can more easily focus on issues of interest to private sector;  Government may provide incentives for research in enhancing cybersecurity; and 66