Nations since the Millennium Declaration of the 55th Session of the General Assembly in 2000,15 and both an end and a means to the end of development in every major intergovernmental organisation since then. 1.49 Bearing in mind that in this context ‘development’ tends to refer more to technological development than more general indicia of social and economic development, the overarching objective of developed countries is to assist developing countries in establishing and maintaining up-to-date information and communications infrastructures and the expertise and skills needed to make them self-sustaining, and this is generally true regardless of the relative size or rate of development of the countries involved. As above, this is both a strategic and altruistic development goal and a matter of enlightened selfinterest on the part of donors because the resulting capacity supports economic prosperity, good governance and other strategic objectives. 1.50 There are many practical aspects and implications of this, but in the case of cybercrime, the first major implication is that cybercrime has the potential to reduce and even neutralise the development advantages of information technologies for everyone, especially for developing countries. The second major implication is that cybercrime from emerging information societies threatens everyone. Thus, while each country, and its information and communications infrastructure and development, must be assessed individually, countries with expertise and resources have a shared interest with developing countries in bringing all countries up to a level at which everyone is protected from cybercrime. Practical implications for rapidly developing Commonwealth countries 1.51 This group of Commonwealth member states, exemplified by India, can be characterised not so much by factors such as size or degree of development, but by the pace of development. One significant impact of information and communications technologies has been the opportunities they provide for rapid development, often by allowing developing countries to ‘leap-frog’ over or around barriers that arise in more traditional development strategies. This sort of rapid progress has major advantages, but it also raises some practical implications and concerns about vulnerability to cybercrime. 1.52 One of these is the fact that, as reliance on technologies as the means and goal of national development increases, and as individual use and reliance on the technologies increase, so does the threat posed by cybercrime and the magnitude of the harm it can cause to national development strategies and the major benefits they provide. A developing country attempting to produce and market hardware or software will not be competitive if it falls below international norms and comes to be regarded as a ‘weak link’ in terms of its vulnerability. More generally, internal development strategies based on technologies will generally depend to a large degree on public confidence in them, which can be seriously affected by cybercrime. Developing countries are more vulnerable to a loss of confidence and reputation damage if their products are seen to be vulnerable to attack than developed countries that have the capacity and resources to recover from cybercrime. 1.53 The other major implication of cybercrime for such countries is the fact that, in any rapid transformation, and especially one involving the complexities of modern information technologies and infrastructures, it can be difficult to ensure that the ability to combat cybercrime keeps pace with the development of commercial activities. In fast-emerging economies strong competition tends to see innovation outpace security in the private sector, 15 See U.N. General Assembly Resolution 55/2, of 8 September 2000 (A/RES/55/2,Annex). See also the annual General Assembly resolutions dealing with technologies, development, globalisation and interdependence, including A/RES/55/212 of 20 December 2000, and most recently, A/RES/67/195 of 21 December 2012. 21