High-Level Session 4: From Summit of the Future to WSIS+ 20

Summary

This discussion focused on assessing the achievements and future priorities of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) as it approaches its 20-year review. Participants highlighted significant progress in expanding internet connectivity, with users growing from 1 billion to 5.5 billion since 2005. The WSIS framework was praised for its adaptability and multi-stakeholder approach, which has helped address evolving digital challenges.

Key achievements included the creation of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and the WSIS Forum, which have facilitated global dialogue on digital issues. The alignment of WSIS action lines with the Sustainable Development Goals was also noted as an important development. However, speakers emphasized that significant challenges remain, including persistent digital divides, the need for meaningful connectivity, and emerging issues like AI governance and data protection.

Looking forward, priorities identified for the next phase of WSIS included bridging digital divides, promoting digital inclusion, addressing environmental sustainability in the tech sector, enhancing digital skills and capacity building, and developing ethical frameworks for emerging technologies. The importance of aligning the WSIS process with the recently adopted Global Digital Compact was stressed.

Participants agreed on the need to strengthen multi-stakeholder cooperation and ensure greater inclusion of voices from the Global South in shaping digital governance. The discussion concluded with a call for the WSIS framework to continue evolving to meet new challenges while building on its foundational principles of inclusivity and people-centered development.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– Achievements and progress made since the original WSIS summit 20 years ago, including increased internet connectivity globally

– Remaining challenges and gaps, such as the digital divide, lack of meaningful connectivity for many, and new issues like AI governance

– The role of multi-stakeholder cooperation and the IGF in addressing digital governance challenges

– Priorities for the future, including environmental sustainability, digital inclusion, capacity building, and aligning WSIS with the Global Digital Compact

– The need to evolve governance frameworks to keep pace with rapid technological change

Overall purpose:

The purpose of this discussion was to reflect on the achievements and lessons learned from 20 years of the WSIS process, identify current challenges and priorities, and consider how to strengthen digital governance frameworks and multi-stakeholder cooperation for the future.

Tone:

The overall tone was constructive and forward-looking. Speakers acknowledged progress made while emphasizing the significant work still needed. There was a sense of urgency about addressing emerging challenges, but also optimism about the potential for continued cooperation. The tone remained consistent throughout, with participants building on each other’s points in a collaborative manner.

Speakers

– Thomas Schneider: Moderator

– Mohammed Saud Al-Tamimi: Governor of Communications, Space and Technology Commission of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

– Junhua Li: UN Under Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs

– Nthati Moorosi: Minister of Information, Communication, Science and Technology and Innovation of Lesotho

– Takuo Imagawa: Vice Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications from Japan

– Sally Wentworth: Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Society (ISOC)

– Sherzod Shermatov: Minister of the Development of Information, Technologies and Communications of Uzbekistan

– Stefan Schnorr: State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport from Germany

– Jennifer Bachus: Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy of the United States

– Torgeir Micaelsen: State Secretary of Digitalization and Public Governance of Norway

Additional speakers:

– Doreen Bogdan-Martin: Secretary-General of the International Telecommunications Union

– Tawfik Jelassi: Representative from UNESCO

– Gitanjali Sah: Representative from ITU

– Robert Opp: Representative from UNDP

– Mike Walton: Representative from UNHCR

– Angel González Sanz: Representative from UNCTAD

– Paul Gaskell: Deputy Director for Digital Trade, Internet Governance, and Digital Standards of the United Kingdom

Expanded Summary of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 20-Year Review Discussion

Introduction

This discussion focused on assessing the achievements and future priorities of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) as it approaches its 20-year review. Participants reflected on the progress made since the original WSIS summit, identified current challenges, and considered how to strengthen digital governance frameworks and multi-stakeholder cooperation for the future.

Key Achievements of WSIS

Participants highlighted significant progress in expanding internet connectivity globally, with users growing from 1 billion to 5.5 billion since 2005, as noted by Gitanjali Sah from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The WSIS framework was praised for its adaptability and multi-stakeholder approach in addressing evolving digital challenges.

Stefan Schnorr, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport from Germany, emphasized the establishment of the multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance as a key achievement. Angel González Sanz from UNCTAD highlighted the mapping of WSIS action lines to the Sustainable Development Goals, which has helped align digital development efforts with broader global development objectives.

Persistent Challenges and Gaps

Despite progress, significant challenges remain. Doreen Bogdan-Martin, ITU Secretary-General, noted that one-third of the global population still lacks internet access. Angel González Sanz highlighted persistent digital divides based on gender, geography, and education.

Tawfik Jelassi from UNESCO raised concerns about limited multilingual and culturally diverse online content, emphasizing the need for more diverse and culturally relevant content online, particularly for indigenous communities.

Robert Opp from UNDP emphasized the environmental impacts of digital technologies, while Mike Walton from UNHCR highlighted ethical concerns around AI and emerging technologies.

Global Digital Compact and WSIS Alignment

Several speakers, including Stefan Schnorr, stressed the importance of aligning the WSIS process with the recently adopted Global Digital Compact (GDC). The GDC was seen as a crucial framework for addressing emerging digital challenges and reinforcing the principles of WSIS. Speakers discussed how to integrate the GDC’s objectives into the existing WSIS framework and action lines.

Priorities for the Future of WSIS

Looking forward, speakers identified several priorities:

1. Bridging remaining digital divides, especially in rural areas (Gitanjali Sah)

2. Promoting media and information literacy and combating misinformation (Tawfik Jelassi)

3. Developing digital skills and capacity building (Junhua Li, UN Under Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs)

4. Addressing environmental sustainability of digital technologies (Robert Opp)

5. Ensuring inclusive global governance of AI and data (Angel González Sanz)

6. Aligning WSIS with the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda (mentioned by several speakers)

Role of IGF and Multi-stakeholder Approach

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was a key point of discussion. Sally Wentworth, CEO of the Internet Society, emphasized the IGF’s role as a crucial platform for inclusive internet governance discussions. Jennifer Bachus from the US State Department stressed the need for meaningful participation from developing countries.

Takuo Imagawa, Vice Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications from Japan, noted the IGF’s ability to address emerging issues like AI governance. Discussions also touched on potentially extending the IGF’s mandate and ensuring sustainable funding for its operations.

Thomas Schneider mentioned the São Paulo guidelines for inclusive multi-stakeholder processes as a valuable framework for future cooperation.

WSIS+20 Review Process

Speakers discussed the ongoing preparations for the WSIS+20 review by various UN agencies. This process aims to evaluate the progress made since the original summit and set the agenda for the next phase of digital development.

Thought-Provoking Comments and Unresolved Issues

Nthati Moorosi, Minister of Information, Communication, Science and Technology and Innovation of Lesotho, provided a stark reminder of infrastructure disparities: “We still have students who have to sit under the tree to learn. So when we talk about connecting schools, for us, it’s quite a big, a long journey.”

Robert Opp’s comment broadened the discussion on environmental sustainability: “Environmental sustainability has to go into the next version of what we do. And it’s the two areas. It’s what digitalization can contribute to environmental sustainability, climate change, but it’s also the contribution to climate challenges or environmental challenges.”

Unresolved issues included:

1. Specific mechanisms for aligning the Global Digital Compact with the WSIS process

2. Effective strategies for addressing the environmental impacts of digital technologies

3. Ensuring meaningful participation from developing countries in AI and data governance discussions

4. Developing strategies for combating misinformation and promoting information integrity online

5. The potential permanence of the IGF mandate

Conclusion

The discussion concluded with a call for the WSIS framework to continue evolving while building on its foundational principles of inclusivity and people-centered development. Participants agreed on the need to strengthen multi-stakeholder cooperation and ensure greater inclusion of voices from the Global South in shaping digital governance.

As WSIS moves towards its 20-year review, it is clear that while significant progress has been made, substantial challenges remain. The future of WSIS will require balancing technological advancement with ethical considerations, environmental sustainability, and the imperative of leaving no one behind in the digital age.

Thomas Schneider : in Geneva in Tunis 20 years ago so I’m having the honor to to moderate this session, but of course this is not about me, but it’s about content and sharing some views. So this session, of course, is focusing on what is coming in the next few months until the end of next year with the 20-year review process of the World Summit on the Information Society and, of course, integrating in all of these reflections that will be made during the next months also newer elements and developments like the Global Digital Compact and how to implement this. So this session will focus on assessing progress and envisioning the future of digital governance and hopefully it will serve as a platform to reflect on past achievements, identify gaps and strategize the way forward for global digital cooperation. So I have a very distinguished number of speakers here that I would quickly like to present to you. So first, His Excellency Mr. Mohammed Saud Al-Tamimi, Governor of Communications, Space and Technology Commission of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, our very nice host, Mr. Li Junhua, UN Under Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs. Her Excellency Ms. Ntati Morosi, Minister of Information, Communication, Science and Technology and Innovation of Lesotho. His Excellency Mr. Takuo Imagawa, Vice Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications from Japan. Then Ms. Sally Wentworth, Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Society, also known as ISOC. And His Excellency Mr. Shermatov Sherzod, Minister of the Development of Information, Technologies and Communications of Uzbekistan. Then Mr. Stefan Schnorr, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport from Germany. Ms. Jennifer Bachus, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Cyberspace and digital policy of the United States. And last but not least, and looking forward to coming to your country next summer, His Excellency Mr. Torgeir Micaelsen, State Secretary of Digitalization and Public Governance of Norway. So looking forward to hearing from all of you and sharing some thoughts about WSIS plus 20 and how to get there and what to want from the process in the coming few minutes. Of course, let us start with some introductory remarks by Mr. Junhua Li from Undersecretary General from UNDESA. Thank you very much. The floor is yours.

Junhua Li: Well, thank you. Thank you very much, Thomas, or Ambassador for giving me the floor. It’s so amazing to have such a distinguished panelist to discuss the WSIS plus 20. But first of all, let me say just a few words. I would like to start by saying that on behalf of the United Nations and also that I guess on behalf of the whole panel to express our profound gratitude to the host country for this exceptional hospitality and excellent efforts in organizing this important event. As you said, Mr. Moderator, we are at a critical moment in global digital governance. The recent adoption of the Global Digital Compact in the United Nations and the upcoming WSIS plus 20 review next year present a very unique opportunity for the global community to shape our digital future in the coming decade. So UNDESA will serve as a secretariat supporting the President of the General Assembly to prepare the WSIS plus 20 process. We are fully committed to coordinating all the efforts with our stake partners. and across the sectors, particularly UN Group Data on the Information Society to be chaired by ITU and UNESCO. This collaboration brings together the key partners like, just now as I mentioned, ITU-UNESCO plus UNDP and UNCTAD for a unified approach. So we are working very closely to define the whole process and support the process. But let me say the IGF in this process plays a very crucial role in our forthcoming review. It can certainly help to amplify and synthesize contributions from the diverse stakeholders to inform and provide the guidance to the WSIS review and also the negotiation process in the final package. So in all, our commitment is here and it also will lead us for next year. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : I need to talk into the mic, that helps normally. Thank you, dear Under-Secretary General. Now we have a few questions that I’d like to hear you reflect on and as we have quite a big panel which is followed by another panel and time is limited as we all know. The time limit for each intervention is not 30 minutes but 3 minutes. So I would like you to adhere or stick to the time because I’m sure we all have a lot to hear from all of you. So let me start with question 1, which is the question about the most significant achievements since the WSIS Summit 20 years ago and what lessons that can be learned when looking back almost 20 years? from your point of view. So what are the biggest achievements and lessons learned? Let me first turn to Her Excellency Ms. Ntati Morozi from Lesotho. Thank you.

Nthati Moorosi: Thank you very much, Programme Director. I am really honoured to be sharing a stage with these excellencies today. I want to start by acknowledging the work that IGF is doing as a platform that is rooted in the visionary principles of the World Summit. As a country located in Africa, I feel like we in Africa, we in Lesotho are at different stages of achievements since 20 years ago when the World Forum was held. We have some milestones that are recordable. The policy framework, we’ve done wonderful work on that. We have the laws that are applicable. However, we still have big gaps, especially on the cyber security legal framework. We find a lot of challenges, especially from the media fraternity. From time to time they feel like we are taking their freedom of expression away from them. However, we are happy to to report that we have created recently the sectoral cyber incident response team, which is an effort to step forward in enhancing our national cyber security resilience and ensuring a secure digital environment. So every time I, the whole time since yesterday, I’ve been listening to different speakers talking about leaving no one behind. I stand here today thinking about my own country, that Lesotho as a country, compared with other countries, it’s already left behind. The people who live in Lesotho, there are still such big digital gaps. Infrastructure-wise, we have been able to achieve close to 95 per cent plus, but somebody talked about the fact that infrastructure doesn’t mean that everyone is connected, because of the challenges that have been highlighted about infrastructure, about skills, about – in Lesotho, the biggest challenge is electricity. We don’t even have electricity to charge whatever smart devices that people have. We have connected only 2 per cent of the schools, because at the moment, where we are as a country, we are still struggling with getting students into classrooms. We still have students who share classrooms. One classroom will host more than three grades in one room. We still have students who have to sit under the tree to learn. So when we talk about connecting schools, for us, it’s quite a big, a long journey. However, we are not discouraged. We are working hard to ensure that we take those baby steps and we ensure that we get our people connected. So in terms of what has been achieved, we have achieved some, but we still have a long way to go. I’m weary about three minutes. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much, Minister. Next, Germany, State Secretary General. What have we achieved? What are the lessons that Germany has learned?

Stefan Schnorr: Thomas, thank you very much, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. Before I start, I want to thank the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for their hard work in organising this year’s IGF. We deeply appreciate their efforts in making these events possible in such important times. To come to your question, Thomas, the World Summit on the Internet, on the Information information society was, in my opinion, truly a milestone for the Internet governance, and not only for the Internet governance, but for the digital cooperation worldwide. And it laid the foundation for the first comprehensive global framework for digital cooperation. The summit is, in my opinion, still highly relevant, even if the wording of information society sounds a little bit outdated, and the acronym WSIS is not familiar to everyone. But as I mentioned, the summit is still important, and it remains a cornerstone in fostering an inclusive, human-centered, and digital transformation. For two decades now, the WSIS has provided essential guardrails for global digital cooperation. For example, the WSIS action lines continue to guide and inspire digital efforts worldwide. I think it’s a clear testament for its long-lasting impact. And very important, WSIS was also the groundbreaking, because it was the first time that non-governmental stakeholder, private sector, technical community, academia, and society worked side-by-side with the representatives of 175 nations to shape the future for the digital cooperation. And this collaboration gave birth to the multi-stakeholder approach, a concept that we, that Germany, has been proud to support since its inception. But perhaps, ladies and gentlemen, the most important and successful outcome of the WSIS is the internet governance, which has brought us all together here in Riyadh. What started as a forum to discuss only technical aspects of internet governance. has evolved into a platform for addressing all aspects of the digital world. Now we discuss, in the past we have discussed 5G, now we discussed artificial intelligence, so all the relevant topics in the digital world are discussed here at the IGF. And therefore, I think no other event succeeds like the IGF in bringing together such diverse voices from all stakeholder groups and fosters meaningful networks in the digital world. I think this is the right way to shape the future and the United Nations can be very proud to host such an influential platform for global digital cooperation. Thank you very much.

Thomas Schneider : Now let’s turn again to our Under-Secretary-General from UNDESA, Mr. Junhua Li, what are UNDESA’s lessons learned and how do you see the biggest achievements, or where?

Junhua Li: Thank you. Thank you, Thomas. I guess it is really challenging to reflect 20 years’ achievement within three minutes. But I would first reflect that the IGF itself is a crowning achievement for this WSIS process. IGF started with the mandate given by WSIS. This very unique, only a global premier forum brought all the multi-stakeholders to engage with each other on a number of issues. Just now, as the Secretary mentioned, the IGF started with a single event. Now we have multi-disciplined work tracks and also thousands of participants joined our discussion. So I think we have learned a lot from the IGF. I think we can learn here and benefit. It’s not only about the government, it’s also about private sectors. civil societies, technical communities, scientific academias, and also the vulnerable groups. But most importantly, we have increasing number of youth participants who helped us to define, to discuss the future of the digital process. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much. We have another question that, of course, after the achievements, we need to look at the challenges and regarding also the newest, the latest instruments. So my question number two is, what are the main challenges in implementing the Global Digital Compact? And what role does the multi-stakeholder approach or should the multi-stakeholder approach play in tackling them? Sally Wentworth from ISAB, please.

Sally Wentworth: Thank you, Ambassador, and I’d like to echo my colleagues in thanking the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for hosting us this week. It’s a marvelous venue and a really nice environment for this kind of multi-stakeholder discussion. The Global Digital Compact aspires to achieve an inclusive, open, sustainable, fair, safe, and secure digital future for all. For many of us here, some of the WSIS veterans, so to speak, this is a familiar theme. This is a body of work that many of us have been engaged in over the last 20 years. And so there are some lessons learned, I think, from the last 20 years that can help us overcome some of the challenges in implementing that vision that’s set out in the Global Digital Compact. I draw on lessons related to connectivity. How is it that the world has… made such impressive progress, growing from one billion people connected in the original WSIS Summit, to 5.4 billion people connected today, and I think what is clear is that it took a tremendous amount of collaboration by all stakeholders to achieve that result. I’m mindful of the question that IT Secretary General Doreen Bogdan put to us this morning, which is, despite that progress, are we satisfied? And of course, the answer is no. We will not be satisfied until the remaining populations are part of this digital society that we’re building. To do that, and if we’re drawing lessons from the last 20 years, we must work together as stakeholders, and that has really been the hallmark of the WSIS, and that was actually the groundbreaking effort that took place during the WSIS Summit in 2003 and 2005, and I remember very well how hard we all worked from governments and civil society, private sector, the technical community, to figure out how we would work together to achieve these results. And so, as we look forward to how we implement the Global Digital Compact, and as we look towards the WSIS Plus 20, it is absolutely crucial that we remain committed to that model, that the model that brings the expertise from all parts of our society to the table and harnesses that is the model that is going to make us successful. It is the way we will move to connect the last 2.6 billion people and ensure that they come online to a world that is safe, secure, and protects them in the digital environment. So, for us at the Internet Society, It’s absolutely critical that the processes that we set up to review the WSIS 20 years later and to implement the Global Digital Compact really do remain firmly grounded in the multi-stakeholder model that has delivered us a tremendous amount of progress in the last 20 years, and has also given us a taste of what’s possible if we really lean into that.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much. Now let’s turn to His Excellency Mr. Mohamed Saad al-Tamimi. What are the main challenges in implementing the Global Digital Compact, and what role does the multi-stakeholder approach have in your view?

Mohammed Saud Al-Tamimi: Thank you, Thomas. First of all, I would like to thank our host, His Excellency Ahmed El-Swayyan, and his great team for putting everything for us to make sure that we are gathering here in a quality environment. Thank you. And let me convince that this is the first time I’ve been in a big panel like this, so I’m watching the time. I’m really glad to be a cambion with this great panelist. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, we are glad that we’re part of the consultation and preparation process for issuing the Global Digital Compact. And definitely there is challenges to implementing that one. And they echo what has been said before. Number one challenge is connecting the unconnected. Right now we have 2.6 billion human beings that are not connected. Right now, today, that’s almost 33% of the globe. 14% of those unconnected due to coverage. This is lack of network. The rest is due to affordability. So there is a huge challenge by facing us as a globe to connect the unconnected. There’s multiple way to solve it. Right now we are partnering with the ITU to find innovative and sustainable solution. the Internet, the Internet is the only way to connect the unconnected, to solve this problem. The most challenging things over the last 20 years, the cage of unconnected people falling dramatically over the past 20 years. Before, this gap of unconnected been decreasing significantly. Right now, over the last 20 years, we have a huge gap of unconnected people falling over the past 20 years. In the past, in the ITU, we have 2. 7 billion, today, at the end of 2024, we still have 2. 6, so over 24 months, we’re adding only 100 million. The second challenge, I think, it’s not about only connecting the unconnected. That connection should be sustainable. So, sustainability should be from the point of view of the ITU, the ITU should be sustainable. The third challenge, I think, is to make sure any solution offered to the table should be sustainable, and there should be fair and safe access to all of these solutions to connect the unconnected. Coming back, Thomas, to your last question, or last part of your question, which is about multilateral discussion. Definitely, there’s two key principle or guiding principle that we should have in the world to make sure that we have a global digital impact, and there are two key challenges of implementing global digital impact. The first one, I think, multiple of my colleagues mentioned it, which is collaboration. Definitely, collaboration between government, private sector, academia. Everyone should be involved, developed and developing country as well. The second one, which is accountability or inclusion. Everyone should be included in the solution, and everyone should be included in the solution. Everyone should be added to that And this means we don’t leave anyone behind. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much, His Excellency. Now let’s go to His Excellency Mr. Takuo Imagawa from Japan. Thank you, Thomas.

Takuo Imagawa: It’s my great honor to be here at the session. I’d like to express my sincere gratitude to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UN IGF Secretary and stakeholders for organizing this friendly meeting. Despite advancement in digital technologies, 2.6 billion people worldwide remain unconnected to the Internet, and many people are not fully benefiting from digital advancements. It is necessary to accelerate international cooperation in this digital field. Japan welcomes the GDC adopted at the UN Future Summit. I believe it is essential to follow up on this compact in an effective manner. I would like to emphasize two points, the importance of multistakeholder engagement and the utilization of existing forums. Firstly, it is difficult to realize the commitment of the GDC only through a top-down approach by the UN or its member states. Cooperation among multistakeholders, including industry, civil society, the tech community, academia, and international organizations is indispensable. The importance of multistakeholder engagement is clearly stated throughout the GDC, but the key is effective implementation. The GDC has agreed to establish new mechanisms, such as the AI scientific panel and the global dialogue. As discussions on the modalities progress, it is necessary to provide multistakeholders with transparent and ample opportunities for input, and to carefully consider those inputs. To make multistakeholder participation more effective, meaningful participation from developing as well as developed countries is necessary, including the efforts of capacity building. We need to advance our efforts by building on existing forums, including the forums outside the U.N. system, and expert efforts avoiding overlaps. The IGF in which we are participating is a forum where various stakeholders contributing digital development gather, and active discussions are currently taking place. We need to advance our efforts by building on existing forums, including the IGF in which we are participating is a forum where various stakeholders contributing digital development gather, and active discussions are currently taking place. The IGF symbolizes the importance of multistakeholder efforts, and is very effective for discussing the follow-up of the GDC. Regarding the follow-up of the GDC and its relationship with existing initiatives such as WSIS and IGF, I understand that specific discussions will take place in the near future. We will continue to work with the Japanese to develop the existing forums, and we will contribute to these discussions. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much. We have another question that I’m going to ask also to three panelists. The question is about how we can effectively address rapidly evolving technologies, knowing that our governance mechanisms take their time. His Excellency, Mr. Torgeir Micaelsen, from Norway.

Torgeir Micaelsen: Thank you, Thomas. I mean, in general, emerging technologies, the disruptive technologies, they should be discussed in an environment like this. In a multistakeholder approach. And I think that we need to have a multistakeholder approach, and we need to have a multistakeholder approach. We need to have a multistakeholder approach. We need to have a multistakeholder approach. As we need to see this from all sorts of angles before going home, collaborating, setting things into motions. So for instance, if we look at AI, it’s obvious that AI-based solutions, they can basically be something that we can save the world with. On the other hand, a lot of ethical and other topics that need to be considered. This is now addressed in the Global Digital Compact. WSIS has engaged in several important topics in that regard as well, with workshops, dialogues. I think this is the right way to move forward, also in the future, to discuss it. For me, and from the Norwegian point of view, the Scandinavian point of view, it’s extremely important that we maintain a human-centric focus in these very important international debates on AI. Emerging technologies, for instance, we have some nice feedback on how to test out technologies in a safe environment. We have these different examples from our sandboxes, where AI systems with high-risk potential can be tried out in a data-protected, data-privacy-safe environment with really nice results. We’d love to share that sometime. We think that we need to have experience with these sorts of times. And as I mentioned, use privacy in enhancing digital development must be stimulated. I think, as I started with… that we need to keep this AI-related topics into the multi-stakeholder dialogue. Lastly, I think we must renew our commitment to ethics and accountability, as called for under Objective 5 in the Global Digital Compact. As AI and other technologies reshape our societies, we must ensure that our multi-stakeholder collaboration upholds the highest ethical standards, safeguarding human rights, privacy and security. If we can manage all those things together, I think we could have a lasting future. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much. Let’s move to Ms. Jennifer Bachus from the United States. How do we cope with the speed of technology?

Jennifer Bachus: I will echo my colleagues here in thanking both the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as well as the MAG and others involved in putting together this really impressive conference. And I’ll also highlight, I have found the evolution of the questions to be great, because now we’re sort of looking to the future. And I think, I hope it’s not a surprise to everybody that the United States is very much committed to harnessing emerging technologies, including AI, for sustainable development, to help ensure all countries are able to access the benefits of technology and to use AI and other technologies to help address the world’s greatest challenges. We are committed to engaging in international AI conversations with a range of partners and across geographies to promote safe, secure and trustworthy AI. But to answer your question and to turn to GDC, it’s been a little over two months since we were in New York, and I was in New York with many of you for the GDC’s adoption. From the beginning, the United States supported the GDC’s adoption of AI. And we’ve been doing this for a long time. And we’ve been doing this for a long time. And we’ve been doing this for a long time. And we’ve been doing this for a long time. And we’ve been doing this for a long time. an inclusive and transparent process to develop an appropriately scoped and rights-respecting GDC to help outline a shared digital future for all, underlining, I think, what everyone here has been talking about today. Throughout this process, we were constructive and proactive. I hope there’s agreement on that. And we very much celebrate the GDC’s focus on multistakeholderism and an inclusive, rights-based and gender-responsive approach to digital issues at the United Nations. These core principles underpin our approach, regardless of the pace of technological evolution. We appreciate that the GDC strengthens the work of the United Nations on new issue areas like AI and data governance in an appropriate manner that is inclusive and transparent. We listened and will continue to listen to non-governmental stakeholders on their concerns that the consultation process did not meet the expectation of these stakeholders’ meaningful participation and their very strong eagerness to be part of the implementation. The United States really welcomes stakeholders to be actively involved in the GDC implementation process. Examples include discussions on the multidisciplinary, independent, international scientific panel on AI, which I will say is a very long title, Global Dialogue on AI Governance, the CSTD Data Governance Working Group, the Proposal for an Office. I could go on and on in the many initiatives. We’re looking ahead to the WSIS plus 20 overall review. And in that point, I’ll flag a couple of key points from the point of view of the United States. We support an inclusive, transparent, and as multistakeholder process as possible for the WSIS plus 20 overall review. We should ensure the WSIS plus 20 overall review focuses on a review of implementation over the last 20 years before we think about what’s next, much like you laid out the questions in this paper. And we should use the WSIS plus 20 overall review to integrate GDC implementation within the WSIS framework. And one last point, because I think I’m running out of my time, it’s important that any role for the U.N. system on evolving and emerging technologies complements existing work by outside entities in U.N. agencies. It does not and should not supersede them. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much. Now let’s turn to His Excellency Mr. Shermatov Sherzod with Pakistan. How can we cope with rapid technology with WSIS and GDC frameworks?

Sherzod Shermatov: Thank you very much. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude for all the organizers of this important forum. And this opens up perspectives for discussing important topics for the development of internet. And from that perspective, I would like to focus on the importance of discussing the human-centric, the people-centric approach. Because in the beginning of the opening ceremonies, there was an excellent presentation by His Excellency Minister Abdullah about the importance of increasing the digital divide between the global north and global south. And from that perspective, if you look into the other dynamics, like the demographics. So in the global north, most of the developed countries, they see the demographic challenges. There are not so many babies born. Whereas in the global south, you see the opposite. There are so many new babies born. So there are different approaches on the government. So governments, they need more jobs to be created. Whereas the internet can really help people to find the remote jobs. So from that perspective, in Uzbekistan, we tried to create. the very favorable conditions for IT companies to open up their delivery centers so that they can have their outsourcing hubs from Uzbekistan, and this will help for the companies in the developed countries to decrease their costs, as well as to create the remote jobs for the people of Uzbekistan, which is a kind of double-locked country. And this, from that perspective, this can open up the additional perspectives, opportunities for all the countries in the Global South, which can utilize this kind of potential of opening the new opportunities for additional sources of income, so that the people in the Global South, they are not looking towards moving physically as potential migrants to the Global West, rather than trying to enjoy living with their families in their own houses, and are able to find good opportunities for income. For that, we have to heavily invest in education, upskilling of the people. For the case of Uzbekistan, we are leading the world in terms of the number of people learning on the Coursera platform as a share of the total workforce, and we try to invest heavily on upskilling of our people in terms of the foreign languages, and in terms of the jobs which can be required in this global digital economy. And from the IGF perspective, I think for the future, we have to think about the ways of avoiding any potential artificial kind of limitations for any type of global work. Because we know that for physical movement of labor, there are limitations with visa, with anti-immigration policies, etc., but we should avoid any potential kind of limitations for the global work. So, all the remote work opportunities… should be available globally, because there should be no limit in terms of the Internet working. And we have to also promote the global cooperation, because the planet as a whole faces lots of challenges which we have identified in sustainable development goals, like even the global green policies are being implemented. So Internet itself is not just an enabler of the green agenda, now it’s becoming one of the biggest pollutants as well, because the global footprint of all the data centers is now more than the global footprint of the airplane industry. So we have to think about creating the green data centers. And from that perspective, I have to showcase a very important cooperation between Saudi Arabian companies, the Aqua Power Data World, which are creating the green energy resources in Uzbekistan, and creating the green data center, which can be utilized by the AI companies which are in very much need of having global computing power, which should be also based on the green energy. So only through opening up the artificial borders in the Internet, through massive education and promoting the global cooperation, we can work together for the benefit of all people living in our single planet. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much. Now we have a fourth question that I would like to hear you all on this question, given that we’re slightly running behind schedule, I dare to reduce your specific time of three minutes to two and a half each. Unfortunately, we don’t have a clock here that we see it. That was announced that there should be one, somehow it didn’t make it. So please try to… to be very concise, but thank you for your interesting point. So the question is the following. It’s about the mandate of the IGF, which will be renewed during the WSIS Plus 20 process. And the question is, what would be your vision for IGF beyond 2025, and how could the IGF contribute to the implementation of the GDC? So we start with His Excellency Mohammed Saud Al-Tamimi, thank you.

Mohammed Saud Al-Tamimi: So here in Saudi Arabia, we firmly believe that IGF should continue as principal platform for multi-stakeholder discussions, forming Internet policy. We see IGF as well as a platform to produce well-crafted policy that will help us as a globe to implement global digital compact. And with that, it will add more inclusivity, with more discussions with multiple stakeholders. And the second one, undermining the time, which is adding more innovation during this discussion. As His Excellency the Minister Abdullah Souha, the Minister of Telecommunication and IT in Saudi Arabia, mentioned this morning, there was multiple forms of digital divide and global divide and AI divide. So we need more discussions, more platforms like this one, to discuss AI ethics, data privacy, digital sovereignty, and so on, the kind of topics that need more discussion, more platforms. And more importantly, for us as a committed nation to deliver global digital compact, definitely we have to continue with the IGF, with WSIS as well, to make sure that we have enough platform for collaborations and innovation to deliver our commitment.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much.

Junhua Li: Thank you. Certainly, UN believes digital transformation is one of the strategic vehicles for almost all member states to catch up their national efforts in attending the 2030 Agenda, even beyond. So I guess over the past two decades, we have achieved enormously. The beauty of the IGF, certainly, we need to commit to, number one, inclusiveness, number two, openness, number three, neutrality. So all in all, as other panelists highlighted very much, we are committed to this multi-stakeholder approach. But beyond this review, what we would like to see is the IGF continues to serve as a premium forum, global forum, on the digital discussion with the participation of the all stakeholders, and we would like to see this IGF to serve as a premium tour to execute the global digital compact. Also, we would like to see that with a stronger mandate after this review, IGF can invest more efforts on the capacity building for those countries in vulnerable situations to help to bridge the gap between the north and south. I’ll stop here.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much. Next is Ms. Sally Wentworth.

Sally Wentworth: Thank you, Tomas. The Internet Society has been a long supporter of of the Internet Governance Forum since its earliest days. And part of the reason for that, again, as I said earlier, is our belief that we will be more effective at implementing the aspirations of the World Summit on the Information Society, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Global Digital Compact, if we are working together. And platforms like the IGF allow all stakeholders on an equal footing in an open and inclusive way to come together to tackle those challenges. What is impressive about the IGF as well is its ability to evolve over time, to meet the needs of the community. And we see that through the national and regional IGFs that have emerged around the world. And the Internet Society has supported many of them over the past years, where we take a global consensus, and the communities themselves start implementing that at the local level. So translating this model of multi-stakeholder internet governance from a global dialogue into local implementation, I think, is a really important feature of the IGF, and one that we would certainly want to see continued and strengthened, and perhaps even a vehicle for the kind of capacity building that the undersecretary spoke about. So we would strongly call for the IGF’s mandate to be renewed as part of the WSIS Plus 20. We would like to see stronger and more sustainable support for the IGF going forward, and ensuring that as it evolves, it retains those key characteristics of inclusion, stakeholders on an equal footing, and this ability to translate global issues into local action.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much, His Excellency Mr. Takou Imagawa.

Takuo Imagawa: Thank you, Thomas. Japan has been a strongly We are very proud to be a member of the IGF, and we are very supporting the multi-stakeholder approach in the Internet of Companies. Last year we hosted the IGF 2023 in Kyoto with more than 11,000 participants registered from 178 countries and regions, including more than 6,000 attending in person. This is a record number in IGF’s history and we are very honoured and also grateful for this community. We are also very proud to be a member of the OASIS Plus 20 community. This year we have a number of multi-stakeholders, active discussions are taking place, demonstrating strong support for multi-stakeholder Internet Governance and the IGF, which is functioning effectively. Based on this, we hope that discussions to sustain and promote IGF will take place in the OASIS Plus 20 review. The theme of this year, building our digital world, is the future of the digital world, and the future of the digital world should be considered, including the possibility of making it permanent in the future. Furthermore, the IGF itself needs to be constantly evolved to meet the demands of the times. Last year, Japan held a special session on AI at the IGF. This year, a wide range of digital issues, including AI, are being addressed. We are also working on the future of the digital world, and we hope that this will be achievable by establishing new tracks, such as the youth track, and we believe this journey will continue. The global dialogue needs to be inclusive for multi-stakeholders, including developing countries. In this sense, it is important to actively leverage existing forums, such as the IGF. Thank you. Also, to repeat, we believe that IGEF is very effective for discussing the follow-up of the TDC. Finally, the IGEF is led by the activities of the MAG. Among all, the leadership panel has greatly contributed to the IGEF, especially in terms of external advocacy and fundraising. Although the MAG and LP are not stipulated in the Tunis agenda, they play a significant role. And we believe that the mechanism leading the IGEF should be discussed in the WSIS Plus 20 review. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you, Her Excellency Ms. Nthati Moorosi.

Nthati Moorosi: Thank you very much. We believe that IGEF’s mandate is still pretty much relevant. However, beyond 2025, it can re-imagine itself having a role in becoming a more dynamic, innovation-oriented platform aligned with the objectives of the Global Digital Compact. Its vision could center around being a catalyst for inclusive, rights-based, and sustainable digital transformation. We want to believe that IGEF can play a role in accelerating the achievements of SDGs. The IGEF could position itself as a global convener for multi-stakeholder partnerships aimed at accelerating SDGs, focusing on digital inclusion initiatives. The GDC emphasizes the need to address connectivity gaps, promote universal, meaningful, and affordable internet access, and ensure that underserved and unserved communities, including marginalized groups, are not left behind. So we believe that IGEF could convene all stakeholders, bring these problems that we’ve been talking about since morning, and come up with solutions together. We talked about the need for cheaper devices, smart devices. IGEF could We believe that IGF has a role to play to bring solutions to the world. We believe that IGF has a role to play to convene the government, the private sector, the civil society, and sit around the table and come up with solutions for that. Solutions for data, price, all the solutions. We believe that IGF has a role to play to convene everyone to bring those solutions. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : And with that, I’m going to turn it over to my colleague, Dr. Jennifer Bachus.

Jennifer Bachus: Thanks. And I’m probably will reflect some of the answers you’ve already heard, and I apologize for that, but I think it’s because there’s significant agreement among those of us in this room. We, the United States, we support the IGF as the preeminent global venue for international engagement. We support the IGF as a platform to bring solutions to Internet public policy issues that are rights-respecting, innovative, and empowering. We recognize this is a really pivotal time for the IGF as it comes under the GDC’s, after the GDC’s adoption, and at the outset of the WSIS plus 20 review. While there’s always space for strengthening the IGF, the IGF has continued to be a model of the IGF. We support continued efforts to strengthen the IGF, including through increased participation by stakeholders from developing countries. On GDC implementation, we’ve been clear about the need to build on existing processes, including the IGF. We’ve seen over the years the IGF as a great venue for discussions on the latest topics and flexible enough to accommodate the evolution of key issues, as was already noted by some of the other panelists. As we move into the WSIS plus 20 review, we expect the IGF to play a key role in strengthening the IGF, and we expect strongly for the UN General Assembly to extend the mandate of the IGF before it expires in 2025. We have also heard a lot of discussion by stakeholders on to come up in the WSIS Plus 20 process. Ultimately, the United States is committing to ensuring the IGF has clear and stable funding. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : His Excellency, Mr. Shermatov Sherzod.

Sherzod Shermatov: Thank you. And we hope that IGF would help us to bring more countries together, because a long time ago, we used to talk about the world becoming like a global village. But unfortunately, the latest event shows that the world is becoming more polarized, and the internet becoming a different kind of silos of different types of internet. And second thing, we used to talk about the importance of connectivity, since like 10% growth on high-speed connectivity will bring like 2% growth of GDP per capita, or it’s used for learning the new things, or increasing the productivity, et cetera. But if you look back to what it is used for, especially with the kids, unfortunately, not all the time internet is helping the kids, but sometimes it’s hurting them as well. So there are countries, even in developed world, who are kind of banning access to social media, banning access to some sort of content. So from that perspective, I would like to see that IGF would focus more on the benefits of internet for the whole human society, and especially for the young, growing kids, so that internet would become a very safe and promoting, developing area, not the area where parents would be kind of cautious about getting access to internet to their kids. So these are the areas I think we should focus more.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you, His Excellency, Mr. Torgeir Micaelsen.

Torgeir Micaelsen: Thank you. I will keep it brief. I see that. I think it’s important to make sure that the multistakeholder approach is strengthened after the process starts next year. There are some people anxious to wrap up, is that true? No, but I think it’s otherwise, my main point is I believe that we should make sure that the multistakeholder platform or the approach is strengthened after the process starting next year. I think it’s important to make sure that the multistakeholder approach is strengthened after the process starts next year. We have been doing this for almost 20 years. The IGF should continue to be the primary arena. That’s our position. Lastly, I think it’s okay to mention that we also need to be careful that we don’t create many new arenas when looking forward. We need to be careful that we don’t create many new arenas when looking forward. I think that’s a crucial piece of inclusion, which we will ultimately give us smaller influence, less influence, if we spread our wings on too many initiatives. We have to build on the strength, the initiatives, the bodies we already have. So, thank you.

Stefan Schnorr: I think that’s a key piece of inclusion. I think that’s a key piece of inclusion. I think that’s the first instrument to implement, to successfully implement the GDC, because the goal of the global digital impact is an inclusive, open, sustainable, fair, safe, and secure digital future for all. There are two key priorities to achieve this goal. Internet shutdowns and censorships. So this is central to the UN mandate and the GDC. We cannot compromise on fundamental rights that shape our digital future. And second, to achieve this goal, it is crucial that all stakeholders collaborate and work together. And in the digital domain, that means that stakeholder expertise is essential for reaching the objectives of the GDC. And the solution is very easy, because the solution is the Internet Governance Forum. It is in a very strong position to facilitate both of these priorities at the end. As we have discussed today, the IGF is one of the most inclusive, open, and transparent forums hosted by the United Nations and the Global Digital Compact that truly seeks to achieve its goals, must recognize the vital role of the IGF in this process. The IGF is not only a platform, it is a cornerstone for shaping our digital future. And I think the IGF mandate is well-suited to this task due to its broad scope. And the IGF has already proven its value, and now it’s time to realize its full potential. Also, the negotiations were challenging for the GDC. There was a broad agreement at the end among all UN members states on the point that we don’t want to have any overlaps. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We need to build on what works, and this is the IGF. And therefore, as I mentioned, I think the IGF is the only instrument for the successful implementation of the GDC.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much. Now I would like to invite Mr. Paul Gaskell, Deputy Director for Digital Trade, Internet Governance, and Digital Standards of the United Kingdom. Paul.

Paul Gaskell: Thank you. which is effective and successful. Since 2005, we have seen how multi-stakeholder governance of the Internet, with roles for governments, the private sector, civil society and the technical community, has driven increased connectivity, fostered technological innovation, and supported a stable and resilient Internet. The ability of the Internet’s global infrastructure to withstand the COVID pandemic and help the world get through that global crisis is evidence of this success. We now face new challenges, however, driven by rapid technological change and a more complex digital landscape. Back in 2005, no one was thinking about AI, social media or the metaverse, and the WSIS Plus 20 Review needs to be ambitious and future-focused, taking full account of new and emerging technologies and addressing the challenges faced by developing countries in particular. As others have said, it’s also a reality, at a much more basic level, that one-third of the world’s population has no access to the Internet and there is still urgent work to do to connect the unconnected. So we must ensure that the WSIS Review fully contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Agenda, WSIS should have a real focus on how the potential of digital can contribute to all aspects of sustainable development. development. And finally, of course, the WSIS review should extend the mandate of the IGF and we think it should consider a permanent mandate as well. And just regarding the success of the IGF, a recent report by independent researchers in Oxford in the UK highlights the IGF success in becoming a global ecosystem for knowledge sharing, particularly for developing world partners. We believe we should build on that, that record of achievement, and strengthen the IGF for the future. The UK looks forward to actively participating in the WSIS review and working with global partners on these issues. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much, Paul. So we have a final round of wrap-ups. There has been some convergence of views, I think, so let’s try to focus on things that we maybe have not heard yet or what you think is particularly important. So I’ll ask each panelist to give a final message of maximum two minutes or less, says the script here. But we are not so bad in time, actually. To each of you, and now this time I start from the other end, so please, what are your key learnings, what are new things that you’ve heard in this round, or what has not been said that you would like to say?

Torgeir Micaelsen: I think there’s a lot of important stuff that has been said. I was just sitting here thinking back, I think it was like in 1994 or 1995, the first time I accessed the internet myself. My father had bought me an Amstrad 64, a modem with a cable, put it into the socket, and hearing that wonderful noise, it almost gets me like a nostalgia here, looking back that’s 30 years ago, I would like everyone to have that kind of feeling that I got in the 90s, everyone should get the feeling to be connected, to make new friends, to learn new stuff online in a safe and secure manner, at the same time respecting their rights to as human beings, so this is kind of the conversation that’s moving forward inside the IGF or at some point later this week, that would be highly appreciated, thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much Jennifer Bachus.

Jennifer Bachus: I would conclude by saying what’s sort of already been said here repeatedly, which is that we will only be successful in the future technologies and the current technologies if all stakeholders are around the table, we can’t do it as governments alone, we need all the voices, we need the private sector, the academic community, the technical community, civil society, otherwise we’re going to miss something that’s incredibly important, so we will continue to be committed to these sorts of engagements and we look forward to Oslo in six months. Thanks to Norway for stepping up and we look forward to seeing you in not that many months ahead, so congrats and thanks.

Torgeir Micaelsen: She saved me, so I’m so sorry, you obviously, all of you, warmest welcome to Oslo in Norway next year for the IGF 2025.

Stefan Schnorr: That’s noted. Thank you very much, I think this panel has truly highlighted the value of the IGF and I’m looking forward not only for the IGF in 2025 in Norway but also for the IGFs in 2026, 2027 and so on, so let’s continue this successful story. I think what we can do is better and strengthen the inclusion of the Global South to make the IGF more visible. I think this is very important. But at the end, we have so many new challenges also in the future. And the best way to address these challenges and to find common solutions is to work together with all multi-stakeholders. Therefore, I’m looking forward for the future of the IGF.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much.

Sherzod Shermatov: As a wrap-up, I would like to thank all the organizers, and I think that this IGF was a very successful event. And I hope that this kind of meetings are very important to have a better idea about the future of Internet, about the future of cooperation among the countries, and improving the necessary areas in terms of the governance. And I’m just looking forward for having more productive and more successful such events, which will help us to cooperate, collaborate with each other, and for the benefit of humanity as a whole. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much. Sally Wentworth.

Sally Wentworth: At the Internet Society, our vision is that the Internet is for everyone. And we believe that we are all stakeholders in the future of the Internet. And that is really what a platform like the IGF represents. And as I said earlier, we look forward to many future IGFs and seeing the IGF continue to evolve to meet the challenges of the future. As we look to the WSIS plus 20, we are a stakeholder in that process. We are part of the Internet technical community. And we really hope that our voice, that the voice of the Internet technical community is included and welcomed in that process, both in the process to evaluate the WSIS and also to think about the future of the WSIS and in the implementation of the Global Digital Compact. Those of us in the internet technical community are working very hard to ensure that the internet continues to evolve in a way that is open and secure and puts people at the center and ensuring that the technology that we all depend upon for the exciting things and the emerging technologies that we’ve spoken about is available and is scalable and is meeting the needs of the future. So we look forward to engaging in that process. We hope that our voice is included and welcomed. And we are excited about the IGF in Oslo and in seeing how the modalities and the process for the WSIS Plus 20 emerges over the weeks and months ahead and contributing our voice to that. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Takuo Imagawa.

Takuo Imagawa: Thank you. My final comment is just adding one point. Within the limited time and the resources, we need to efficiently advance the WSIS Plus 20 review. We have reached an agreement on the GDC through difficult negotiations, and the agreed items in the GDC should not be reopened, but rather used as a basis for the WSIS Plus 20 review, I guess. For example, regarding the WSIS action lines, I believe we should have effective and efficient discussions by basing them on the existing 11 items. So we look forward to discussion to come, including the IGF 2025 in Norway. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you. Nthati Moorosi.

Nthati Moorosi: Thank you. I think my last words is just to thank the organizers, the government for hospitality, but also to challenge IGF to say that I I want to reiterate that it has to play in the space of SDGs, it’s about time we discuss difficult problems, come up with great solutions that can save little budgets that we have in the country, that can grow the economy. It’s about time we talk about even big problems such as voting online for national elections, like writing examinations online, things like that. We have to start talking about big problems and coming up with big solutions. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you. Junhua Li.

Junhua Li: Thank you. Thank you, Thomas. I would say that I will leave Riyadh with a strong conviction that the IGF’s or its potential needs to be further tapped with a stronger mandate, with a review, then we would equip this IGF platform to a new phase that would provide more recommendations, solutions to the member states, to the multi-stakeholders, that how AI or digital process would really benefit the whole humanities. So, I look forward to seeing everyone in Oslo for the next IGF.

Thomas Schneider : Mohammed Saud Al-Tamimi.

Mohammed Saud Al-Tamimi: Since I’m the last one, let me take the liberty to speak on behalf of this panel. As we are approaching the 20th anniversary of WSIS, we all agree that we have to have more WSIS coming, and more IGF, as my friend in Norway says that we will have 25, 26 and more to come, as a mandatory platform, collaboration and inclusive, to implement our commitment as a global digital compact. And I wish you a successful… And I think that’s what we are going to see in the coming days for this coming IGF Riyadh 2024.

Thomas Schneider : So thank you very much. We are approaching the end of the first part. Before I let you go, let me allow to try and add one or two things. I think there seems to be broad support that an inclusive, not just a multi-stakeholder approach, but an inclusive multi-stakeholder approach, but not just the big ones, but also to have a voice, a sitting at the table and have a voice at the table. Something that I would like to add to the discussion is that it is important that everybody is sitting at the table, but we should not forget that we may have the reference on the respective roles of the different stakeholders. It was hard fought, paragraph 35 or 36 or whatever it was in the agenda. We may have different roles, but anyone that is missing, there’s always room for discussion. So I think it’s important to, if we talk about multi-stakeholder, to bring everyone together, discuss our roles, agree on the roles and agree on solutions, hopefully, and also agree on making sure that all voices are heard, and in this respect, I would actually also like to refer to the São Paulo guidelines that have been adopted earlier this year, the guidelines that have been adopted earlier this year, which have indicators and tools and solutions to how to make sure that a multi-stakeholder process is actually real inclusive. It helps to also counter power imbalances, which exist not just among governments, but also, of course, among the other stakeholders. And I think everybody agrees on the relevance of the IGF, on the potential of the IGF, also, of course, if the more funding is available. And one of the reasons for the potential and the success of the IGF, it has been and I would like to conclude that this is the agility and the dynamic of the IGF, its ability to deal with emerging issues that pop up many times first in the IGF on the agenda and are then picked up by the ITU, by UNESCO, by OECD, by other institutions that rely on the IGF to identify emerging issues, which is also one of the functions according to paragraph 72, point G, whatever the exact thing is of the Tunis agenda. So we are not inventing these things. These things have been foreseen. The potential of the IGF has been foreseen in the WSIS documents in Geneva and in Tunis, and we are looking forward very much to us all together driving the IGF forward. And the IGF is not an end in itself. It’s a means, as we’ve heard, to achieve the SDGs, to make sure that all of us are able to benefit from digital technologies for the good and not for the bad. Thank you very much to all of you, and I’m looking forward to hearing you and seeing you again at the next occasion. Thank you very much. With this, we will move to the second part of the… I’m supposed to moderate also the second session, and I just need to switch the PDF. Thank you very much for this. Now we’ll move to the second session, which, if I see this correctly, is somewhat less multi-stakeholder in the sense… We are missing Tafik Yelassi from UNESCO. And Gregor Salis is connected online. Okay, let’s give him a chance to come in and use, in the meantime, he’s walking in, excellent. This is such a big venue that sometimes it takes time to get from A to B, but he’s coming. While he’s taking his seat, let me happily introduce to you Ms. Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunications Union, to give some introductory remarks to all of us. Welcome, Doreen, thank you.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin: If the technicians could turn on the microphones. The light is here, so now we have the visuals, now we need the audio as well, in order to have a… Okay, that’s better. Now, we’re all there. Thank you so much, Ambassador Schneider, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, good evening. It’s great to be here with all of you to share some thoughts as you kick off this session. I think, ladies and gentlemen, we are standing together today at the cusp of the next chapter of the inclusive digital future, and we’re doing so at a time when technology often feels like it’s always one step or more ahead of us. Two decades ago, the world convened to declare a common desire and a commitment to build a people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society. where everyone can create, access, utilize, and share information and knowledge. And while the WSIS framework has helped to make great strides towards this goal, I think now is the time that we have to pause, although I hate to say the word pause because we don’t want to stop, but it’s really the moment for us to reflect and take stock of our progress, to review the current state of the world and the technology around us, and to double down on our commitment towards an equitable and sustainable digital future. The WSIS has presented us with a powerful example of digital cooperation in action, withstanding the test of time by building adaptable, and Thomas, as you said when I was walking in, agile, if I can say that, adaptable, agile governance processes that can keep pace with the opportunities and the challenges of emerging technologies. We need to continue to build on this momentum. And today, we have the adoption of the Global Digital Compact, and that is an important milestone in the journey to next year’s WSIS Plus 20 review. And I want to leave you quickly with perhaps three thoughts as we drive forward our shared ambition. So the first is to think about connectivity in terms of universal, meaningful connectivity because how can we achieve the vision of WSIS if a third of humanity and countless others that we, third of humanity being unconnected and countless others that are under-connected as we see it, not part of today’s digital experience. Second, we have to invest in trust and security. The next phase of WSIS must play a critical role in ensuring that AI and other emerging technologies are developed responsibly and inclusively. At stake is a sustainable development agenda, our 17 SDGs, and our progress towards achieving those 17 goals. And third, last but not least, making building our multi-stakeholder digital future a top priority. We have to do that, ladies and gentlemen, with a shared commitment for a safe and inclusive and a sustainable digital ecosystem. Rest assured that you can count on the ITU to accompany you every way, every step of this process. I think it’s fair to say that we are in a race against time. The future of digital has not yet been written, but let’s remember who we are, where we came from, and what we can achieve when we work together. So let’s write that next chapter of our shared digital future together. With that, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for the opportunity. And Thomas, Ambassador, Chair, back to you. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you, Secretary General. So, yeah, over to the panel. I think we can actually use question one and question two, put them together so that I think that makes sense. And not surprisingly, the questions are not that different from what we’ve heard. Basically, the clients, your customers of the UN bodies speak. So it’s good to see how you see these things. So question one is also, what have been the achievements from your point of view of the WSIS process in the last 20 years? How has the WSIS impacted the work of the UN, of your institutions? And then you may also, I encourage you to also talk about looking forward. So, let me start with Tafiq Elassi, I would like to hear from you.

Tawfik Jelassi: Thank you very much, Thomas. Good afternoon to all of you. Let me share with you the perspective from UNESCO. 20 years ago, OASIS came up with a visionary framework to bridge the global digital divide, to increase accessibility to the Internet, and to harness the potential of information and communication technologies, obviously for socio-economic development. It did not foresee the rise of digital platforms, it did not foresee the rise of AI and generative AI, but again, we had a vision and we had a framework. This was approved at the Tunis edition of OASIS, building on the Geneva Summit that happened two years earlier, 2003, Tunis being in 2005, and obviously it set up a number of objectives and action lines to be implemented at both the national and the international levels. So, your question, what have we accomplished since then? I think OASIS 2005 created a momentum at a global stage. It was a call for collective action, and also it created a political will among participants, and again the participants were very much multi-stakeholder, to make the concept of an information society become a reality. So there were some key principles and guidance that came out of the Tunis summit, with this long-term goal, how can we all benefit from the digital age? Today we can say that some of these objectives were achieved, but many others were not, or not fully achieved. Is the information society today a reality worldwide? No. We see that one-third of the world’s population is still offline, not even connected to the internet. Today, this morning, we heard more about the rise of the knowledge-based society. Here we talk only, quote-unquote, about the information-based society. So the world around us has changed. The question is, have we changed? Have we changed enough in the face of these global changes? So I want to give maybe a balanced response to your question, Thomas. Major achievements were made, for sure, including through collective efforts. But again, I think as IETU Secretary General just mentioned, there is still a lot of work ahead of us, and there are new challenges that came to the fore, including when the information ecosystem moved to digital, good news, because it democratized access to information. But with that came mis-disinformation, hate speech, discrimination, racism, and a whole set of harmful online content. What are we doing, or what have we been doing to combat that? When we see that the rise of digital influencers, in addition to digital content creators, when we see some of these youngsters, called digital influencers, each having 50, 60, 100 million followers online, more than all the UN organizations’ followers combined. Are these professional journalists? They are not. Do they check the content before they post it online? They don’t. In 62% of cases, they don’t check the content before they post it online. So I think these are new challenges that we face. It’s a whole new world. And obviously, we don’t want the internet to become the online Wild West. We want some global governance of the internet. We want to ensure, as again, Doreen said, a safe, secure, open, accessible internet to all. Multilingualism online. We are here in Saudi Arabia. The Arab world represents almost half a billion people. How much content in Arabic is there online? 3%. 3% only. And there are so many communities, including indigenous communities, who have no content online whatsoever. So is that an information society? It cannot be an information society. So just to say that a lot has been achieved, and we are delighted, but again, this user-generated content and the explosion of that, diversity of cultural expressions online, digital influence. There are many other issues that we need to not only make note of, but we have to actively find solutions. We have to create open access… access to information we are respecting, human rights and the openness, accessibility and the multi-stakeholders.

Gitanjali Sah: Thank you very much. As our Secretary-General mentioned in the opening speech, we have to create open access to information we are respecting, human rights and the multi-stakeholders. of stakeholders worldwide who really wanted to make a difference on the ground, bringing the benefits of digital to the people. It was about the people, about bringing the benefits of technology to the people on the ground. And to create a trusted, connected world, to look at the gender digital divide, to look at the intergenerational divide, the economic and social benefits that technology, information and communication technologies could bring to the ground at that time. So looking back, the three main achievements that stand out for us as ITU is first, we focused on people, not just the technology, ensuring that everyone everywhere gets the benefit of the digital progress. Second, we’ve made the framework extremely collaborative, inclusive, through our multi-stakeholder efforts. We’ve made sure that the private sector, civil society, technical community, the UN and of course governments reflect the digital world’s diversity and complexity at the same time. The third, we build this adaptable governance processes, you know, so that they can keep pace with the opportunities and challenges that keep emerging with the development of technologies. For instance, look at the WSIS action lines. They’ve given stakeholders a clear framework to tackle evolving digital challenges, from infrastructure to ethics to capacity building to cyber security, including to the really important things that UNESCO is looking at, for example, the indigenous languages, culture, media. It’s really a diverse range, a gamut of ICTs that the action lines cover. And they’ve been evolving with technology. They have a framework which adapts to the ever- changing technology and innovation. We also want to give a special recognition to So, I would like to turn to two very key outcomes of WSIS, and the two complementary processes, the Internet Governance Forum and the WSIS Forum, that have really given action and the grassroots digital development and movement that WSIS is all about. As for the impact of WSIS on UN’s work, it’s important to mention the role that digital now plays in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals, and in 2015, UNESCO, ITU, WHO, ILO, FAO, all UN agencies, UNDP, involved in the WSIS process, we mapped the WSIS action lines with the Sustainable Development Goals, clearly showing a rationale as to how the action lines can implement and can help accelerate the achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals. We also mapped the WSIS action lines with the Sustainable Development Goals, thereby showing clearly how technology can impact and have a very important impact on sustainable development. So, we’ve seen the world go from 1 billion Internet users in 2005 to 5.5 billion today, as Dr Jalasi mentioned, from dial-ups to 5G networks, from fragmented social networks, and then in 2015, a logo S Laurie today showing how S Laurie stood the test of time as a powerful framework for inclusive digital cooperation. Thank you.

Angel González Sanz: Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the introduction and the organizers for giving us the possibility to participate in this discussion. It’s going to be very difficult for me to highlight different achievements of the WSIS process from the ones that have already been identified by my distinguished predecessors in the WSIS process. Identified by my distinguished predecessors in this panel. As has been said, many of the aspirations of the WSIS 20 years ago have been not just fulfilled, but probably exceeded in expectations that the stakeholders had at the time. If one thinks, for example, in terms of the pervasive presence of information and communication technologies in everyday life for many, many billions of people around the planet, and how access to the Internet and access to different forms of ICTs have improved productivity in the economy, but also improved the access to public services, to education, to health, how during the crisis of the COVID pandemic, the Internet enabled some form of social activity to continue in many contexts. At the same time, it has to be said that many of the aspects of the vision of WSIS remain only partially fulfilled, or not fulfilled at all. For example… It has been raised, the question of the digital divide is not only a matter of having more and more people connected, it’s also a matter of giving these people meaningful connectivity. Connectivity that enables them to actually participate as full members of society and exercise the right to political participation, to access to reliable information, to engage meaningfully as citizens. There are divides that affect people along different lines, gender is an important one and we still have very serious gender digital divide, rural versus urban is another one and even educational levels translate into very different kinds of experiences when connecting to the internet. We also see many developments in the area of ICTs that are completely or were completely out of the radar at the time when WSIS was conceived. It would have been difficult for example to imagine 20 years ago that some of the biggest public sector investment would be in this area or that the private sector, the biggest multinational companies would be built around digital service provision, particularly around data. So in terms of how all these changes have affected our work I think it has already been said that the WSIS process has been fundamental in highlighting that there cannot be development without taking a very development oriented perspective into the world of internet connectivity and ICTs. The work that was done by the WSIS actors to map the SDGs to the different action lines I think was very important in that sense and I think it would be impossible for any of us UN agencies to really carry out our work today, our development work without keeping this intimate connection between digitalization and development present in all of our activities. The WSIS Placement Review in which we are now engaged as Secretariat of the CSTB in the moment. partnership with your colleagues from the ITU, from UNESCO, UNDP and others, highlights this intimate connection between development and the WSIS in discussion. It has already been mentioned the crucial role of multi-stakeholder participation in all these processes and I would like to again, like Gitanjali said, highlight the role of the IDF but also of the WSIS Forum in helping identify fundamental trends in technology and in development and in the interface between the two of them, which are essential for any successful development policy. I think I will stop here and I would again just want to close with a reminder of the importance of the WSIS Plus Central Review in the sense of identifying, through a multi-stakeholder approach, the strategic lines in which the WSIS Plus can advance in the convergence between development policy and ICT policy. Thank you.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much. Robert Opp.

Robert Opp: Thanks very much. I don’t want to repeat what colleagues have said, so if it’s okay I’d like to make another observation and some of it might be a bit provocative, but if I reflect on where we’ve come in the last several years, now there’s 20 years since WSIS, but the last several years have seen an acceleration of digitalization, largely I would say as a result of the pandemic. And so there have been three big shifts from the development perspective at the country level that we’ve noticed. One is a shift from thinking of digital and ICTs as solutions and thinking of it more as ecosystems. So thinking really the interconnectedness, the interoperability across entire societies. Second big shift is going from a very fragmented state to a very much more holistic understanding of digital transformation. So it’s not digital transformation only in separate sectors or ministries, but rather a whole of society. And the third big shift is from what I would call techno-optimism to an understanding of the fundamental issues around rights and inclusiveness, that the technology brings risks with it. And now I’m speaking from the perspective of development practitioners, which when I say techno-optimist, because in fact when you look back at the WSIS and you look back at the vision and the fundamental principles that were established, they were actually very visionary in that sense. And the basic framework is still valid despite these kind of seismic shifts in digitalization and ICTs. And so I think the WSIS framework that includes IGF and so on gives us the platform to continue those discussions and has adapted accordingly. I think that what we’re starting to see in addition is a broader interest in these mechanisms because the space of digitalization, the topic of digitalization has become so much more prominent. And although, Gitanjali, I would agree that, you know, I know there was work that was done as part of the SDGs and Agenda 2030, the fact is that a lot of the issues that we’re discussing today were still absent in 2015. And it was almost as though it was a kind of a niche on the side, like, you know. But when it comes to the successor discussion around what’s going to come after the SDGs, the current Agenda 2030, I don’t think there’s any question that areas of digitalization will be at the center. So I think the world is shifting. I think that WSIS and IGF have also been accommodating that because the fundamental framework is solid and I think that we do need to look at the future at what is coming next and how do we continue to evolve and strengthen and broaden what we’ve established and what has been working for the last 20 years.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much Robert. Mike Walton.

Mike Walton: Thanks and I would agree with you Rob, it was visionary and I just look at the basis of what was in the original principles and I think now apply that to UNHCR’s digital strategy and a lot of it still rings true. So digital inclusion is primary for refugees and forcibly displaced and now this wouldn’t have happened 20 years ago but now it wouldn’t have happened 10 years ago. We can see that people are accessing information, life-saving information, information that helps them rebuild their lives. Ten years ago we didn’t have a help website for refugees, now 14 million refugees and forcibly displaced visit that every year and that just wouldn’t have been possible but it’s thanks to the work of pushing this agenda that we actually managed to get this inclusion happening. So just in terms of another opportunity, when I went to Kakuma there was a group of refugees that were coding Android apps for revising, learning for the local community. They were unable to do that, they had a small generator, they had coding, they had equipment and the impact of that was designed by the community and it worked for the community. That wouldn’t have happened 20 years ago, so thanks to all of this kind of pushing that’s just become a reality. A couple of unsung heroes that are in the original document… knowledge and digital preservation, which I know that UNESCO and others do a lot of work on, we have a huge amount of knowledge and stories and a fantastic archive team in UNHR that’s trying to digitally preserve those conversations that happen, the documents that exist, the strategies that are written, and that digitization of knowledge and sharing of knowledge is so critical to actually become useful in the future. So let’s really push forward with that. And with accessibility, we wouldn’t have had auto-captioning 20 years ago. Digital accessibility for those with disabilities has moved on, and people can access lots of assistive technologies and lots of different pieces. We’re not completely there yet, but it has come on leaps and bounds. So just to flag those two parts of the original WSIS principles that perhaps aren’t talked about enough. But I’ve made it sound really rosy, but there are still huge gaps. We’ve talked about that difference in gaps between people who have access and people who don’t. And yes, more refugees do have access, but we’re changing the landscape. The information landscape has changed. It’s far more risky. There’s far more ability for fraud, for risk of trafficking, for toxic narratives to exist online. How do we make sure? This is the next looking at the priorities question. How do we really make sure that we focus on those increased risks and we can tackle those risks going forward? In terms of the importance of multi-stakeholder approach, I’ll just give a couple of examples there. And this is why it’s so important to keep convening, is that we’ve had two examples with the Global Compact on Refugees, which have been invaluable to move forward multi-stakeholder agenda. One is on misinformation and information integrity, which is really about having trusted information out there that people can go to and they know what trusted content is. And we’ve had fantastic support. the Norwegians, the Swiss, the Google and Meta supporting this pledge, and so thanks to them for that multi-stakeholder approach. And on connectivity, the work that ITU have done has been fantastic in terms of pushing with us on that joint approach to connectivity. So without all of the joint working, without the dialogue happening, we wouldn’t have been able to achieve and to get where we are. But focus on these new things that have come since the initial principles.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you. So, looking forward, what are the most critical priorities? Very briefly, Tawfik.

Tawfik Jelassi: That’s a good question, Thomas. What are the most critical priorities for the next phase of WSIS? I think that today we are in this digital information ecosystem, and I think we should really maybe look more deeply into the supply and demand of information in that digital ecosystem. When I mentioned in my first intervention the exponential dissemination of harmful online content, that’s obviously from a supply perspective of information. We have, and I mentioned one initiative of UNESCO, the guidelines of UNESCO for the governance of digital platforms, which were published a year ago, and you are moving into the pilot implementation of that. But then we have to look also at the demand side of information, at the usage side of information. When our studies show that on average a youngster spends six hours a day connected to these digital platforms, more than doing homework or anything else, what information do they come across? Is that fact-checked information, or is that misleading and even harmful information? When we see, again, the usage side, what can we do about that? One initiative, again, by UNESCO is to make the users become media and information literate. And we have developed curricula, we have developed content on media and information literacy. As countries have taught foreign languages in the 60s and the 70s, the language of the youngsters today is digital. Have we prepared them to that? Have we developed a critical mindset among the users of these digital platforms so they can hopefully distinguish between the fact-checked information and the fake or deepfake information, but also at least to check the source of information before they like and share and become themselves amplifiers of misinformation? So I think that’s something that we need to tackle. This is a priority, as I see it. Another priority is inclusivity. And of course, inclusivity includes gender equality online. We know today that women are less connected and significantly less connected than men to the Internet. But also the presence of women in digital technologies, including AI. We know that they represent 10 to 15% of the workforce, depending on what discipline of digital we want to look at. A third priority is the environment. To what extent can WSIS contribute to tackling the issues of climate change and the environmental crisis? That’s, I think, something also very important nowadays. But also there is another priority, which is the next phase of WSIS, today that we have a global digital compact. WSIS was a UN event adopted by heads of state around the world, but so is the global digital compact. How can the two UN processes I think it’s very important that we work together, that we hopefully complement each other, or work in some symbiosis with each other, without duplication, without dilution of effort in this regard. And when we talk about AI also and other emerging technologies like generative AI, the issue of the global data governance, I think which we did not have maybe to the same extent, and with that, we should pay attention to the digital skills. We should pay attention to the digital skills divide. This morning we saw the Saudi minister showing us the huge number of digital jobs not fulfilled today, because we do lack digital skills and competencies for a number of these digital tasks and activities. So I think we should pay more attention to capacity building, capacity development in digital. And finally, let’s say if we look at the future of AI, I think we are in an era where we cannot just reform education, but to what extent generative AI is transforming education, transforming teaching, transforming learning, transforming assessing students’ skills and competencies, I think we are in an era where we cannot just reform education, or incrementally improve on it. Gen AI disruptive technology that is what 훨씬 quan a ashed for not only to people only to students but also we talk today back life-long learning, evide-2 professionals along their active career. So again, this is what I see as a first set of priorities to consider.

Gitanjali Sah: ** Thank you very much. ** We’ve accepted this first session as you mentioned. I’ll try to maybe bring in the collective efforts we’ve making for business plus 20 and where all stakeholders can contribute to the uplifting game for business with efficiency with sustainability. They live by theoral and prize-based So, of course, one of our main priorities, which, again, I’d like to highlight, is to bridge the digital divides. We can no longer accept that 38% of the population in Africa, only 38%, uses the Internet. That the gender disparities, at least in these developing countries, are expanding. The biases in AI, and the algorithm biases that are existing in AI, are also to be looked at. Now, the 1.8 billion of the 2.6 billion offline live in rural areas. So these are the divides we really need to focus on. And what we are doing as a collective, as a UN, as the UN for the WSIS plus 20, is that we’ve started our preparatory process, UNESCO, ITU, UNCTAD, through CSTD, UNDP. So we’ve been, and the regional commissions, we’ve been looking at how the regional WSIS plus 20 processes, and our main events, like the upcoming UNESCO conference in July, the IGF in June, the WSIS plus 20 high-level event in Geneva in July, 7th to 11th of July, the CSTD in April. How can these upcoming milestones play an important part in multi-stakeholder contributions towards the WSIS plus 20 review? So we have the GDC, which of course, again, was a milestone towards the WSIS plus 20 review. How can we make the upcoming events more impactful, contributing towards the WSIS plus 20 review? Now all of us are aware that two co-facilitators will be appointed for the WSIS plus 20 review, and we are hoping that this is done as soon as possible. so that the modalities resolutions could be worked on and that we could move on with the WSIS plus 20 review process and ensure that the vision of WSIS beyond 2025 is as strong and as multi-stakeholder as it was in 2000 even into a 2015 where we looked at the at the emerging trends and opportunities and challenges of each action lines as the UN as and as multi-stakeholders so of course the GDC has set an ambitious vision for us we must all get together and see how we can incorporate that milestone into the WSIS plus 20 review process and looking at the IGF how we could strengthen it we all support the IGF we love it a lot of concrete multi-stakeholder outcomes come out of it the Swiss chairs summary at the WSIS plus 20 forum high-level event this year in 2024 those of you who haven’t read it you must really go and read it because it has all these components in it the WSIS plus the important role that IGF and the WSIS forum plays of how we can align the WSIS and the GDC so there is already a lot of work going on around all of this and we should see how we can put all of it together now once the GDC was adopted also the UN has been in action we’ve developed an ONGIS action plan where we have mapped the WSIS action lines with the 2030 agenda and the GDC principles clearly highlighting the frameworks and the institutions and activities that exist to implement the GDC so this exists At the ITU, with the UN agencies in Geneva, we also have this Geneva UN digital kitchen where we are meeting quite often to come up with a Geneva action plan on what we could do together as the UN to contribute to the GDC process. And as the ITU, our member states have also asked us to come up with an ITU action plan to implement the GDC and present it to our next council working group on WSIS and SDGs. So there is a lot of work going on and there is good momentum. We should feed this all into the WSIS plus 20 review process to ensure that we have a bright vision and future for multi-stakeholderism and the WSIS process beyond 2025.

Thomas Schneider : Yes, thank you. Robert, please.

Robert Opp: All right. A lot has been said already. Taufik was super comprehensive. So let me just emphasize a couple that were mentioned and mention a couple that weren’t. Environmental sustainability has to go into the next version of what we do. And it’s the two areas. It’s what digitalization can contribute to environmental sustainability, climate change, but it’s also the contribution to climate challenges or environmental challenges. E-waste is a huge problem. Carbon emissions are a huge problem. And with the advent of AI and Gen-AI, that is actually going to get worse. I know that there is technology that is also becoming more efficient, but we have to be cognizant of the balance. I think it was a recent report from our colleagues at UNCTAD, actually, that one of the figures that stuck in my mind was that data centers a couple years ago were emitting the same carbon emissions as France. And that is going to grow. So we have to be, as a UN system, responsible. when we actually look at these issues and proliferate technology. I think capacity building, no question for us. We see that as probably the number one gap when we work at country level. Requests come to us for more capacity, more skills, stronger ecosystems, et cetera. Then I would mention digital public infrastructure is something that has emerged in the last several years. It is something that is now in the global digital compact. And I think that we need to consider what it looks like in the context of WSIS as well, because it is something that we think has a lot of promise for accelerating digital transformation at the country level. The last one I can’t remember, so I’ll stop there.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you very much. Thanks. Mike.

Mike Walton: Yeah, and another good segue from Rob there, talking about climate change, the impact. I mean, agree, digital inclusion, information integrity, I think we’re all agreed in terms of those priorities. We haven’t talked about ethics more broadly in the ethical use of technology, and actually do no harm in the products that we use and we produce is really important. We are about to work on a refugee gateway, which will be a one-stop access point for refugees. How do we make sure that we deliver that in an ethical way? How do other suppliers make sure that they’re creating technology solutions that take into account all of the different ethical principles that are there? So I would say, let’s really broaden it out. Climate change, absolutely. That has a huge impact on refugees when it’s combined with conflict situations. But what are the other ethical principles that we should focus on as part of our prioritization? And how could we build out a joint framework for how we agree on how that can be applied to new solutions?

Thomas Schneider : Thank you. Angel.

Angel González Sanz: Thank you. It’s very, very, very difficult to say anything different from what has already been said. I would just join my voice to those that mentioned the environment, and not just because we just published a report on. on this issue, but also because it’s really a big concern and it’s probably going to become an even bigger concern and we need to take action quickly on both the environmental burden of digital technologies but also on using better the potential of digital technologies to address environmental issues. The second point that perhaps I would like to emphasize that we need to work together to address the risks that digitalization can bring about in terms of increasing equality. Increasing equality among men and women, increasing equality within countries between different social groups, but also increasing equality across countries. And one particular problem or area of concern in that regard could be the intimately linked questions of data governance and artificial intelligence governance. We were just now finishing a survey of the major artificial intelligence governance initiatives that exist in the world, seven of them. And we found that there are 118 countries that are not involved in any of them, whereas only the G7 member countries are involved in all of them. The risk that the interest, the voice, the concerns of the developing countries will be completely ignored in these discussions is very serious and really we need to do much more effort in becoming inclusive in developing responses to the challenges created for artificial intelligence. The same can be said about data governance and data is after all the fuel on which artificial intelligence models are driven. So we need to also come up with much more inclusive ways to develop… principles for data governance. The CSTD is now tasked by the GDC to set up a multi-stakeholder working group on principles of data governance that should report to the UN at the end of 2026. And this is, in my opinion and Anto’s opinion, a major challenge that we need to address through, again, a deep multi-stakeholder engagement including, in particular, the voices from the Global South. Thank you very much.

Thomas Schneider : Thank you, Angel. And yeah, we have one minute left, so I would take that one minute from me trying to wrap up with what we’ve heard. I think, obviously, we all agree that a lot has been achieved, but there’s much more work to do. And time doesn’t stand still, so with every task that we’ve accomplished, we get two, three more tasks in the future, which is a challenge for all of us. And I think we will have ample time to discuss, and what Tafik already said, how to align, how to bring together the GDC and the WSIS process into one, based on the 20 years of work that has been done so far. And I’m looking very much forward to continuing the discussion in various combinations and in various sessions this week, but also in Geneva, in Paris, wherever this is going to be. Thank you very much, and enjoy the nice evening here. And this is the end of today, as far as I know, at least of this official part. So thank you very much, and see you tomorrow, I guess. Thank you very much. Thank you. I get the poles back in a quick second. Here we go!

Agreement Points

Importance of multi-stakeholder approach

Stefan Schnorr

Sally Wentworth

Jennifer Bachus

Mohammed Saud Al-Tamimi

Established multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance

Multi-stakeholder model as crucial for implementing Global Digital Compact

IGF as key platform for inclusive internet governance discussions

Need for meaningful participation from developing countries

Importance of collaboration between governments, private sector, and civil society

Multiple speakers emphasized the critical role of the multi-stakeholder approach in internet governance and implementing the Global Digital Compact, highlighting the IGF as a key platform for inclusive discussions.

Persistent digital divides

Mohammed Saud Al-Tamimi

Angel González Sanz

Gitanjali Sah

One-third of global population still lacks internet access

Persistent digital divides based on gender, geography, and education

Bridging remaining digital divides, especially in rural areas

Several speakers highlighted the ongoing challenge of digital divides, emphasizing the need to connect the unconnected and address disparities based on various factors such as geography, gender, and education.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of addressing ethical concerns and promoting digital literacy in the face of emerging technologies and misinformation.

Tawfik Jelassi

Mike Walton

Promoting media/information literacy and combating misinformation

Ethical concerns around AI and emerging technologies

Both speakers highlighted the need to address the environmental impact of digital technologies and ensure inclusive governance of emerging technologies like AI.

Robert Opp

Angel González Sanz

Environmental impacts of digital technologies

Addressing environmental sustainability of digital technologies

Ensuring inclusive global governance of AI and data

Unexpected Consensus

Environmental sustainability in digital development

Robert Opp

Tawfik Jelassi

Environmental impacts of digital technologies

Addressing environmental sustainability of digital technologies

The focus on environmental sustainability in the context of digital development was an unexpected area of consensus, as it was not a primary focus of the original WSIS but has emerged as a critical issue.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement included the importance of the multi-stakeholder approach, the need to address persistent digital divides, the role of the IGF in internet governance, and emerging concerns about environmental sustainability and ethical use of digital technologies.

Consensus level

There was a high level of consensus among speakers on the core principles of WSIS and the need for continued multi-stakeholder cooperation. This consensus suggests a strong foundation for future collaboration in addressing digital challenges and implementing the Global Digital Compact. However, there were also diverse perspectives on specific priorities and approaches, indicating the complexity of the issues at hand and the need for continued dialogue and negotiation.

Different Viewpoints

Prioritization of challenges

Tawfik Jelassi

Robert Opp

Angel González Sanz

Promoting media/information literacy and combating misinformation

Addressing environmental sustainability of digital technologies

Ensuring inclusive global governance of AI and data

While all speakers agreed on the need to address various challenges, they differed in their emphasis on which issues should be prioritized. Jelassi focused on media literacy and misinformation, Opp highlighted environmental sustainability, and González Sanz emphasized inclusive AI and data governance.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement were related to prioritization of challenges and specific focus areas within the broader agreement on multi-stakeholder approaches.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among speakers was relatively low. Most speakers agreed on the fundamental principles and achievements of WSIS, as well as the importance of multi-stakeholder approaches. The differences were mainly in emphasis and prioritization of specific issues, rather than fundamental disagreements. This suggests a generally unified vision for the future of WSIS and internet governance, with variations in how to best address specific challenges.

Partial Agreements

All speakers agreed on the importance of the multi-stakeholder approach and the role of the IGF, but they had slightly different emphases. Schnorr focused on its importance for implementing the Global Digital Compact, Wentworth highlighted its role in inclusive discussions, and Bachus specifically emphasized the need for developing countries’ participation.

Stefan Schnorr

Sally Wentworth

Jennifer Bachus

Multi-stakeholder model as crucial for implementing Global Digital Compact

IGF as key platform for inclusive internet governance discussions

Need for meaningful participation from developing countries

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of addressing ethical concerns and promoting digital literacy in the face of emerging technologies and misinformation.

Tawfik Jelassi

Mike Walton

Promoting media/information literacy and combating misinformation

Ethical concerns around AI and emerging technologies

Both speakers highlighted the need to address the environmental impact of digital technologies and ensure inclusive governance of emerging technologies like AI.

Robert Opp

Angel González Sanz

Environmental impacts of digital technologies

Addressing environmental sustainability of digital technologies

Ensuring inclusive global governance of AI and data

Key Takeaways

The WSIS process has made significant achievements over the past 20 years, including increasing global internet connectivity and establishing a multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance.

Despite progress, major challenges remain, including persistent digital divides, environmental impacts of technology, and ethical concerns around AI and emerging technologies.

Key priorities for the future of WSIS include bridging remaining digital divides, promoting digital literacy, developing digital skills, addressing environmental sustainability, and ensuring inclusive global governance of AI and data.

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) continues to play a crucial role as a platform for inclusive internet governance discussions and addressing emerging issues.

There is broad agreement on the need to align the Global Digital Compact (GDC) with the WSIS process going forward.

Resolutions and Action Items

UN agencies to develop action plans for implementing the Global Digital Compact

Prepare for the WSIS+20 review process, including regional consultations and key events in 2024

CSTD to set up a multi-stakeholder working group on principles of data governance, reporting to the UN by end of 2026

Strengthen the IGF’s mandate and ensure its continuation beyond 2025

Unresolved Issues

Specific mechanisms for aligning the Global Digital Compact with the WSIS process

How to effectively address the environmental impacts of digital technologies

Ways to ensure meaningful participation from developing countries in AI and data governance discussions

Strategies for combating misinformation and promoting information integrity online

Suggested Compromises

Leverage existing forums and processes like the IGF to implement the Global Digital Compact, rather than creating entirely new mechanisms

Balance the promotion of digital technologies with efforts to mitigate their environmental impacts

Develop a joint ethical framework for technology solutions that can be applied across different contexts and stakeholders

We still have students who have to sit under the tree to learn. So when we talk about connecting schools, for us, it’s quite a big, a long journey.

speaker

Nthati Moorosi

reason

This comment provides a stark reminder of the vast disparities in basic infrastructure and education between countries, highlighting the immense challenges in achieving digital inclusion.

impact

It shifted the discussion to focus more on the realities faced by developing countries and the need for addressing fundamental infrastructure issues alongside digital connectivity.

The Arab world represents almost half a billion people. How much content in Arabic is there online? 3%. 3% only. And there are so many communities, including indigenous communities, who have no content online whatsoever.

speaker

Tawfik Jelassi

reason

This comment highlights a critical aspect of the digital divide beyond just access – the lack of relevant, localized content for many language communities.

impact

It broadened the conversation about digital inclusion to encompass not just connectivity, but also the creation and availability of diverse, culturally relevant content online.

We need to work together to address the risks that digitalization can bring about in terms of increasing equality. Increasing equality among men and women, increasing equality within countries between different social groups, but also increasing equality across countries.

speaker

Angel González Sanz

reason

This comment draws attention to the potential negative impacts of digitalization on equality, challenging the often optimistic narrative around digital technologies.

impact

It prompted a more nuanced discussion about the complex effects of digitalization, encouraging participants to consider both positive and negative consequences across various dimensions of equality.

Environmental sustainability has to go into the next version of what we do. And it’s the two areas. It’s what digitalization can contribute to environmental sustainability, climate change, but it’s also the contribution to climate challenges or environmental challenges.

speaker

Robert Opp

reason

This comment introduces the critical link between digitalization and environmental sustainability, an aspect that had not been prominently discussed earlier.

impact

It expanded the scope of the discussion to include environmental considerations, prompting others to reflect on the dual role of digital technologies in both contributing to and potentially mitigating environmental challenges.

Overall Assessment

These key comments significantly broadened and deepened the discussion by introducing critical perspectives on the challenges and complexities of digital inclusion. They shifted the conversation from a focus on technological progress and connectivity to a more holistic consideration of socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental factors. This resulted in a more nuanced and comprehensive dialogue about the future of digital governance and the implementation of the WSIS goals, emphasizing the need for multifaceted approaches that address both opportunities and risks associated with digitalization.

How can we effectively address rapidly evolving technologies, knowing that our governance mechanisms take their time?

speaker

Thomas Schneider

explanation

This question addresses the challenge of keeping governance and policy frameworks up-to-date with fast-paced technological advancements.

How can we ensure that the WSIS Plus 20 review focuses on implementation over the last 20 years before considering what’s next?

speaker

Jennifer Bachus

explanation

This highlights the importance of thoroughly evaluating past progress before setting future goals.

How can we integrate GDC implementation within the WSIS framework?

speaker

Jennifer Bachus

explanation

This question addresses the need to align and combine two major UN digital initiatives.

How can we avoid potential artificial limitations for global digital work?

speaker

Sherzod Shermatov

explanation

This relates to ensuring open access to global digital job opportunities without unnecessary restrictions.

How can we address the increasing risks in the digital landscape, such as fraud, trafficking, and toxic narratives?

speaker

Mike Walton

explanation

This question highlights the need to tackle emerging threats in the evolving digital environment.

How can WSIS contribute to tackling climate change and environmental crises?

speaker

Tawfik Jelassi

explanation

This explores the potential role of digital technologies in addressing urgent global environmental challenges.

How can we develop a joint framework for ethical principles in technology solutions?

speaker

Mike Walton

explanation

This addresses the need for a common approach to ensure ethical development and use of technology.

How can we ensure more inclusive participation in AI governance initiatives, particularly from developing countries?

speaker

Angel González Sanz

explanation

This highlights the importance of involving diverse voices in shaping AI governance globally.