New York (USA), 7 August 2024 - Over the past few years, cybercrime has surged in frequency, scale, and sophistication. Perpetrators now target individuals, organizations, as well as critical sectors providing vital services. The intricate and constantly evolving nature of the cyber threat landscape necessitates cross-sector collaboration to effectively combat cybercrime.
Recognizing this need and the interest of the multi-stakeholder community to play an active part in addressing cyber threats, the UNODC Civil Society Unit and the Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, through the Cybercrime Stakeholder Engagement Initiative, seek to strengthen the analysis and explore the constructive capacity of public-private partnerships (PPPs) on cybercrime.
A newly published report, “Public-private partnerships on cybercrime: Regional perspectives on best practices, challenges, and opportunities from the Americas, Africa, and Asia,” assesses the strengths and needs of cyber-related partnerships within regional stakeholder engagement networks and expert groups. This mapping exercise combined expert interviews and surveys to distil best practices and lessons learned, aiming to serve as a practical tool to level the playing field among organizations across diverse regions. The report also highlights examples of established partnerships on cybercrime and areas of potential future cooperation between the public and private sectors relevant to the Cybercrime Stakeholder Engagement Initiative and broader stakeholder engagement.
At an event hosted by the Dominican Republic, the report was presented at its permanent mission to the UN in New York, in the margins of the reconvened concluding session of the Ad Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering Cybercrime (AHC). Ambassador Claudio Peguero Castillo emphasized the great importance his government attaches to PPPs, particularly on private critical information infrastructure operators on the cybersecurity side, which had been a part of the National Cybersecurity Strategy in his country since 2018. The event brought together representatives from the public and private sectors as well as international organizations, addressing areas of cooperation and approaches to public-private partnerships by a number of experts, including: the Head of UNODC’s Global Programme on Cybercrime (Glen Prichard), the World Bank (Keongmin Yoon), Microsoft (Nemanja Malisevic), Access Now (Raman Jit Singh Chima), and the Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (Tobias Krachler). Regional interventions were also shared by Mujeres de Tech of Dominican Republic (Michelle Aybar), and Media Foundation for West Africa of Ghana (Sulemana Braimah), as well as by Interpol (Pei Ling Lee), the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (Chris Painter), the Council of Europe (Alexander Seger), Electronic Frontier Foundation (Katitza Rodriguez) and others.
The ongoing engagement and consultations facilitated through this Initiative have gathered valuable insights and feedback from frontline agencies and organizations tackling cybercrime. The report, which was presented and moderated by the Civil Society Unit (Pavlina Pavlova and Anders Frantzen), highlights that joint actions against cybercrime requires multi-stakeholder partnerships that leverage the expertise and resources of diverse actors. It emphasizes the importance of meaningful engagement from governments, industry, civil society, academia, technical experts, and other relevant stakeholders. Additionally, the report identifies a critical need to further develop PPPs on cybercrime in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, while considering regional, national, and local perspectives.
See more:
Pan-regional cybercrime stakeholder consultation
Harnessing global responses to a new UN cybercrime convention
Reconvened concluding session, New York, 29 July - 9 August 2024
Join our WhatsOn Stakeholder Hub
UNODC’s Global Programme on Cybercrime
