Africa Shield Cyber Centre · Kigali

The centre

A desk for East Africa, kept in Kigali.

Africa Shield was set up so people and institutions in the region would have somewhere to report, learn, and compare notes. The public website now shows published feeds beside that mandate. It does not invent incidents.

Mandate

Watch, teach, and answer.

The mandate is practical: help the region notice fraud and intrusion sooner, teach the habits that stop the ordinary cases, and give institutions a place to coordinate.

The hope, stated without decoration, is a region that can adopt digital services without treating every handset as an open till.

Years

  1. 2020

    Practitioners in the region began planning a shared centre, after a run of fraud against mobile money and public offices.

  2. 2022

    The centre opened, with a first security operations room and early partnerships.

  3. 2023

    Coverage was described across 14 countries, with training added beside the watch.

  4. 2024

    The centre’s own notes record awards for the regional work, and a wider training programme.

  5. 2025

    Offices in Kigali, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Kampala, and Addis Ababa. The public desk on this site reads outside feeds rather than claiming a private sensor grid.

How the work is organised

Amara Okonkwo

Chief executive. The centre credits her with the early design of the detection programme.

Kwame Asante

Chief technology officer. Responsible for the systems the desk runs on.

Fatima Al-Rashid

Chief security officer. Leads testing and the research the analysts use.

James Mwangi

Chief operating officer. Runs the offices and the partnerships.

What the centre offers

  • A place to report, by phone and, on this site, a private notebook.
  • Lessons in English, with navigation also in French, Kiswahili, and Kinyarwanda.
  • A reading of public vulnerability and indicator feeds.
  • Training and drills for institutions, arranged from the contact page.

Recognition the centre has recorded

  • A 2024 excellence note from an international cybersecurity alliance.
  • A 2023 African innovation note.
  • A stated partnership around the UN cyber cooperation effort.

Certification claims are only as current as the centre’s last review. Ask before you rely on one.