At the opening of the Conference, State Secretary Marko Štucin addressed the participants in a video speech. He praised their efforts to strengthen cyber capacities and cyber resilience and underlined Slovenia's strong support for the Accra Call, which was adopted by the participants at the opening of the Conference. It highlights the persistent digital divide, inequalities in knowledge and limited access to cybersecurity resources, especially in developing countries. Slovenia supports the call for greater integration of cyber capacity building into traditional development programmes and emphasises the need to integrate cyber resilience into national and international development investments to ensure the sustainability of development outcomes in the face of growing cyber threats.

Ambassador Tadej Rupel, National Coordinator for External Aspects of Digitalisation, AI and Cybersecurity, actively participated in the panel "Think Global, Build Local" on the regional importance of building cyber capacity, co-organised by Slovenia. The panellists discussed the role of regional cyber capacity centres in strengthening local, regional and international ownership of action; the different roles and governance models for establishing regional cyber capacity centres; and the best practices, standards, lessons learned and resources that contribute to successful partnerships for cyber capacity building.

In his address, Ambassador Rupel emphasised the importance of establishing regional centres with a strategic focus on best practices. As an example, he highlighted the Western Balkans Regional Cyber Capacity Centre (WB3C), established by Slovenia, together with France and Montenegro in Podgorica. The WB3C is a powerful tool to improve the cyber resilience of the Western Balkans by providing various training courses and establishing a regional platform to exchange information and best practices to improve cybersecurity. Ambassador Rupel stressed that the regional centres should aim for a sustainable way of working, which means creating a system where experts train students who then become experts themselves and return to the Centre to train others. By promoting this cycle, the centres ensure that there is a steady source of trained professionals in the region and that they are not dependent on external experts. This is exactly what the WB3C is trying to achieve. On 16 October this year, Slovenia, France and Montenegro signed an agreement to launch the WB3C centre. It is expected to be established as an international organisation in 2025, with the aim of creating a community that takes care of itself in all aspects.

Ambassador Rupel also took part in a panel discussion on the importance of synergies between different international activities in the same regions.