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UN AI dialogue urges human rights to become the foundation of AI governance

Human rights must move from the margins to the centre of AI governance if societies are to harness AI without undermining democracy, equality and public trust, speakers argued during the fourth thematic discussion of the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance.

Bringing together governments, UN agencies, civil society, academia and industry, the session examined how AI systems can better respect human rights through stronger transparency, accountability and human oversight. Participants agreed that AI governance should be grounded in international human rights law throughout the entire AI lifecycle, from design and development to deployment and oversight.

AI deserves the same safeguards as medicines

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk opened the discussion by comparing AI regulation to the approval process for new medicines. Drugs undergo years of testing before reaching patients, he noted, yet AI systems are being deployed at unprecedented speed despite already contributing to mass surveillance, online disinformation, discrimination and growing risks to children.

Türk rejected the notion that regulation inevitably slows innovation, arguing instead that robust safeguards enable societies to trust new technologies. International human rights law, he said, already provides a binding framework for addressing issues such as privacy, equality, non-discrimination and access to justice, and should guide AI governance rather than being treated as an afterthought.

He also stressed that human oversight must be meaningful rather than symbolic, with clearly identified individuals empowered to intervene or halt AI systems when necessary. Summarising his vision for responsible innovation, Türk contrasted the technology industry’s pursuit of ‘bigger, faster, better’ with what he described as a more appropriate goal: ‘smarter, kinder, wiser.’

Women and children bear disproportionate AI risks

The first panel focused on how AI is amplifying existing inequalities, particularly for women, children and other vulnerable groups.

UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous presented evidence showing that 44% of assessed AI systems exhibit gender bias, while up to 99% of online sexual deepfakes target women. She also noted that women remain significantly underrepresented in AI development, with only a minority of national AI strategies explicitly addressing gender equality.

Bahous argued that governments remain the primary duty bearers under international human rights law and called for mandatory human rights impact assessments before and after AI deployment, alongside the meaningful participation of women, indigenous communities, disability advocates and civil society in AI governance.

Sonia Livingstone, a member of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, highlighted growing evidence that AI-generated child sexual abuse material is increasing rapidly and warned that many AI companion systems currently fail basic child safety standards. Rather than excluding young people from digital technologies, she argued, policymakers should ensure that children’s rights to participation, education and expression remain protected while embedding safeguards into AI systems from the outset.

Agentic AI raises new accountability challenges

Speakers also warned that increasingly autonomous AI systems are exposing significant legal and governance gaps.

Morocco’s Minister Delegate Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni described agentic AI as one of the most important governance challenges of the coming decade. As AI systems increasingly rely on networks of autonomous agents making decisions without direct human instruction, identifying responsibility when something goes wrong becomes considerably more difficult.

She proposed several practical measures, including documenting the actions of AI agents throughout decision-making processes, ensuring that a clearly identifiable human remains responsible for AI-enabled public services, and guaranteeing timely avenues for redress when individuals are harmed.

Samuel Arias Arzeno, Judge of the Supreme Court of the Dominican Republic, similarly argued that governance only becomes meaningful when someone believes an AI system has violated their rights and seeks justice. Courts, he said, must remain central institutions for ensuring that AI-assisted decisions remain subject to human accountability.

Rights protections should not depend on geography

A recurring concern throughout the discussion was that meaningful human rights protections are often applied unevenly across different regions.

Digital Rights Foundation founder Nighat Dad argued that robust human rights due diligence is largely conducted only where legislation requires it, particularly in Europe, while identical AI systems may be deployed elsewhere without comparable safeguards. She described this as a structural choice rather than a capacity gap, creating what she called a ‘two-tier’ human rights regime.

Dad called for mandatory gender and child rights impact assessments before deployment, consistent due diligence obligations across all markets where AI systems operate, and repeated assessments whenever AI capabilities change significantly.

Alvitta Ottley, also a member of the Independent Scientific Panel on AI, highlighted what she described as an ‘evaluation mismatch’. Current AI assessments often measure technical performance such as speed and accuracy, she explained, while policymakers and societies are instead asking whether AI protects human rights, strengthens accountability and improves people’s lives. Closing this evidence gap will require interdisciplinary research and much stronger evaluation of AI’s long-term societal impacts.

UN Assistant Secretary-General for Youth Affairs Felipe Paullier added that young people remain among AI’s most active users and innovators, yet rarely participate in decisions shaping the technology’s future. He urged governments to create meaningful opportunities for youth participation within national AI governance frameworks.

Global South voices call for more inclusive governance

Audience interventions reinforced the need for AI governance that is genuinely inclusive rather than shaped primarily by a handful of countries and companies.

Brazil highlighted its Digital Statute for Children and Adolescents, which requires child protection measures to be incorporated from the design stage and restricts platform features that encourage excessive use. Poland pointed to the Council of Europe Framework Convention on AI as an important legally binding instrument placing AI within the broader framework of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, while the Republic of Korea presented its AI Basic Act, which requires human rights assessments for high-impact AI systems.

Civil society organisations called for stronger global action. Access Now urged governments to establish binding human rights safeguards and prohibit AI applications that pose unacceptable risks, while the Association for Progressive Communications argued that communities should be viewed as ‘the first mile, not the last mile’ of AI governance, emphasising that meaningful connectivity and local participation remain prerequisites for equitable AI development.

In the closing discussion, co-chair Linda Bonyo highlighted another overlooked barrier to inclusive governance: many Global South experts remain unable to participate in international discussions because of restrictive visa processes, illustrating that exclusion from AI governance can begin long before negotiations start.

Closing the session, Spain’s Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Service Óscar López Águeda acknowledged that governments are already behind the pace of technological change but insisted the direction ahead is clear. AI governance, he argued, is ultimately about defending democracy, human dignity and human agency, ensuring that AI helps societies become better rather than simply more technologically advanced.

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Global Dialogue highlights need for interoperable AI governance

Building safe, secure and trustworthy AI requires countries to align their governance frameworks rather than adopt a single global regulatory model, participants heard on the second day of the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance. Speakers from governments, international organisations, industry and civil society argued that interoperability, backed by common standards, scientific evidence and inclusive participation, is essential to address AI risks that increasingly cross national borders.

The discussion also highlighted a growing imbalance in global AI development, with participants warning that governance should not be shaped solely by the countries and companies leading frontier AI. Instead, they called for developing countries to become co-creators of international AI governance through stronger capacity development, shared standards and multilateral cooperation.

AI concentration risks becoming governance concentration

Opening the session, co-chair Paula Bogantes Zamora, Costa Rica’s Minister of Science, Innovation, Technology and Telecommunications, argued that the world has reached a point where agreeing on AI principles is no longer enough.

‘The world does not need more AI principles, it needs a common way to prove they’re being implemented.’

Bogantes Zamora warned that AI development remains heavily concentrated. She noted that institutions in the United States produced 59 notable AI models in 2025 and China another 35, while the rest of the world produced just 13. She argued that this concentration of infrastructure also creates a concentration of evidence, allowing a small number of actors to determine which risks are measured, which benchmarks are accepted and how AI safety is evaluated.

She also pointed to findings showing that 118 countries, primarily in the Global South, remain largely absent from major international AI governance discussions.

Rather than pursuing regulatory uniformity, Bogantes Zamora proposed what she called ‘minimal viable interoperability’ by 2027, including shared terminology, comparable risk classifications, interoperable incident reporting and multilingual evaluation methods that allow different governance systems to function together.

Interoperability should connect governance systems, not replace them

Co-chair Rebecca Finlay, CEO of the Partnership on AI, argued that governance efforts must be grounded in stronger scientific evidence and greater transparency.

She outlined three priorities: strengthening independent scientific research, improving public access to evidence through greater disclosure by AI developers, and creating shared baselines for measuring progress in the public interest.

‘The panel provides the evidence and the dialogue provides the direction,’ Finlay said, describing the UN scientific panel and the Global Dialogue as complementary processes.

UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies Amandeep Singh Gill echoed that message, warning that fragmented AI governance creates regulatory arbitrage, accountability gaps and unnecessary compliance burdens, particularly for smaller companies and developing countries.

Rather than harmonising all AI rules into a single global framework, Singh Gill argued that countries should focus on building practical bridges between different governance approaches.

He also highlighted the emergence of increasingly autonomous agentic AI systems as a new governance challenge requiring adaptive oversight mechanisms, including cross-border regulatory sandboxes and continuously updated risk assessment frameworks.

Existing frameworks provide building blocks

During the first panel, speakers pointed to several initiatives that could serve as foundations for greater interoperability.

Yoichi Iida, adviser at Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, highlighted the OECD AI Principles and the Hiroshima AI Process as examples of frameworks already helping countries align governance approaches despite different legal systems.

Syed Ahmed of Infosys said that translating broad principles into practical implementation remains technically challenging.

Using transparency as an example, he explained that the concept carries different technical requirements across governance frameworks, requiring detailed mapping of individual controls rather than simply aligning high-level principles.

Nouf Al Hameli of the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs similarly argued that countries define concepts such as ‘high-risk AI’ in different ways, making common incident reporting and mutual recognition of governance practices increasingly important.

Leonardo Cervera Navas, Secretary-General of the European Data Protection Supervisor, compared AI governance to aviation safety, arguing that while countries operate different legal systems, they nevertheless follow common international safety rules.

‘The higher the risk, the higher the care and supervision required,’ he said, referring to the EU AI Act’s risk-based approach.

Inclusive evaluation and trustworthy evidence remain critical

Several speakers argued that trustworthy AI depends not only on technical standards but also on ensuring that governance reflects linguistic, cultural and demographic diversity.

Dr Joy Buolamwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, warned that widely used AI benchmarks often fail to represent the global majority, noting that some have historically included less than 5% of the world’s population.

She called for harm reporting systems that record not only technical failures but also who was affected, creating stronger foundations for accountability and redress.

Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, drew lessons from more than 150 years of international weather cooperation, arguing that trust cannot simply be declared.

‘Trust must be built through verification,’ she said, pointing to the organisation’s longstanding use of shared standards and independent validation across 193 countries.

Qinghua Lu of Australia’s CSIRO proposed greater collaboration through shared evaluation methods, common risk management principles and international testing exercises that include multiple languages and national contexts.

Global South calls for a stronger role in shaping AI governance

Interventions from member states and stakeholders repeatedly stressed that interoperability should not become another mechanism for exporting governance models developed elsewhere.

Pakistan argued that AI safety standards are currently shaped by a small group of countries and companies, calling instead for genuinely multilateral governance under the UN.

Brazil similarly stressed that interoperability must not undermine digital sovereignty, while South Africa argued that governance frameworks should reflect the realities of developing countries and support technology transfer and capacity development.

Other speakers highlighted practical priorities, including multilingual benchmarks, common standards for documenting AI training data, cross-border incident reporting systems and greater participation from local governments, academia and civil society.

Concluding the discussion, both co-chairs argued that trustworthy AI depends not on identical regulations but on governance systems that can communicate, exchange evidence and recognise one another’s safeguards.

They identified shared technical standards, independent evaluation, multilingual benchmarks, human rights protections and continuous multistakeholder cooperation as the foundations for AI governance capable of working across borders, while warning that progress will depend on maintaining momentum between international meetings rather than restarting discussions each year.

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AI is reshaping work more through job transformation than job loss, WSIS panel hears

AI is changing the world of work in more complex ways than simply replacing workers, according to experts speaking at the WSIS Forum 2026. Panellists from the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) argued that while AI will automate some tasks, its broader impact will be felt through changing job quality, workplace surveillance, recruitment practices and skills requirements, making human-centred policies essential to ensure workers benefit from the digital transition.

The discussion highlighted that governments, employers and workers all have a role in shaping the future of work, with speakers calling for stronger labour protections, social dialogue and investment in digital skills to prevent AI from deepening existing inequalities.

AI is changing tasks and working conditions more than eliminating jobs

Sher Verick, Head of the Employment Strategies Unit in the Employment Policy Department of the ILO, challenged the widespread narrative that AI will trigger mass unemployment. Presenting findings from the ILO’s AI exposure index, he said around one in four workers worldwide are exposed to AI, yet only 3.3% of global employment falls into occupations that are highly vulnerable to automation.

‘The focus shouldn’t only be on job losses,’ Verick argued, explaining that AI is transforming how work is organised rather than simply eliminating occupations. Jobs involving a diverse range of tasks are more likely to change than disappear, while new roles are already emerging across AI supply chains, including data annotation and other support functions.

He stressed that the most significant impact may be on job quality rather than job numbers. Automated recruitment systems, algorithmic task allocation and AI-driven performance monitoring are already reshaping working conditions across sectors, while productivity gains could eventually create new employment opportunities through wider economic growth.

Algorithmic management raises new concerns for workers

Uma Rani Amara, Senior Economist at the Research Department of the ILO, argued that the conversation about AI should extend well beyond generative AI tools such as ChatGPT to include the algorithmic management systems increasingly used across workplaces.

Drawing on examples from manufacturing and healthcare, she explained that AI-powered surveillance tools, CCTV systems and digital performance dashboards are allowing employers to monitor workers more closely than ever before. While companies often present these technologies as efficiency tools, she warned that they can increase workplace stress, intensify workloads and reduce workers’ autonomy.

In hospitals, digital workflow management systems may improve patient scheduling and resource allocation, but they also place nurses and doctors under greater pressure by increasing workload intensity and extending on-call responsibilities. Even commonly used tools such as messaging applications can create new privacy risks when sensitive information is shared outside secure systems.

Rani also drew attention to what she described as AI’s ‘invisible workforce’, the millions of people, largely based in the Global South, who label data, moderate content, and perform other essential tasks that allow AI systems to function.

‘We should stop calling it AI and start calling it ‘human-in-the-loop intelligence’,’ she said, arguing that AI’s apparent autonomy obscures the human labour underpinning every stage of its development.

She called for stronger protections for these workers through measures such as fair labour standards, mandatory disclosure of AI supply chains and certification systems showing where training data originates and under what working conditions it was produced.

Governments must shape the future of work

Juan Chacaltana, Senior Employment Policies Specialist at ILO, argued that technological change should not be viewed as an inevitable force to which societies simply adapt.

‘The future of work should be shaped through policy,’ he said, presenting findings from an ILO review of 75 employment policy documents that found governments increasingly integrating digital technologies into employment services, labour market information systems and skills programmes.

However, he cautioned against viewing digital tools as a solution in themselves. While technologies can help modernise public employment services and support labour market formalisation, they cannot replace traditional drivers of economic development such as productivity growth, investment and strong institutions.

Chacaltana also warned that governments should avoid using digital tools primarily for surveillance or enforcement. Instead, introducing digital identity systems, AI-assisted public services and labour market technologies should involve workers, employers and other stakeholders through meaningful social dialogue.

The discussion also highlighted groups facing particular risks during the AI transition. Rani warned that young workers could lose the entry-level jobs that traditionally provide experience and career progression, while women risk a ‘double whammy’ of displacement from automation alongside discrimination embedded in biassed AI recruitment systems. Older workers and people in informal employment could also face new forms of exclusion or reduced autonomy as algorithmic systems increasingly influence workplace decisions.

Skills and cooperation are key to an inclusive AI transition

Praachi Kumar, Capacity Development Officer at ITU, said demand for AI-related training has grown rapidly, with interest in AI courses through ITU Academy tripling over the past five years.

The Academy now serves more than 115,000 ICT professionals, the majority from developing countries, while ITU’s Digital Transformation Centres initiative has reached around 700,000 people in underserved communities through digital skills programmes.

Kumar said lifelong learning must remain human-centred, combining technical knowledge with practical experience and peer learning. She also highlighted new multilingual AI governance courses developed in partnership with UNESCO to help address widening skills gaps.

Throughout the discussion, speakers agreed that preparing workers for AI requires far more than technical training. They called for coordinated action across labour, education and technology ministries, alongside stronger partnerships between governments, employers, trade unions and international organisations.

Closing the session, moderator Maria Prieto Berhouet said the debate had consistently returned to one central principle: AI should serve people, not the other way around. Rather than allowing technological change to dictate the future of work, participants argued that governments and social partners must actively shape AI’s role so it enhances productivity while protecting workers’ rights, dignity and opportunities.

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UNESCO highlights civil servants’ role in AI governance

UNESCO’s AI literacy training for civil servants has highlighted the importance of public-sector capacity in responsible AI governance.

The programme focuses on AI ethics, governance, risk management and responsible use, rather than only on productivity tools or prompt-writing skills.

UNESCO said many participants initially expected practical training on AI tools, but later connected issues such as accountability, transparency, bias, procurement and oversight to their own public-sector responsibilities.

The experience showed that meaningful human oversight depends not only on technical safeguards inside AI systems, but also on the capacity of officials involved in procuring, deploying, regulating and monitoring those systems.

UNESCO said participants often finished the programme with more questions than they had at the beginning. The organisation framed that as a sign of growing awareness of the complexity of AI governance, not as a lack of understanding.

Localisation also proved important. Through the AI Ethics Experts Without Borders network, training was adapted to national contexts and delivered in languages used by officials in their daily work, including cohorts in Egypt and Tunisia.

UNESCO said AI literacy should be seen as a foundation for broader institutional readiness, including risk assessment methods, procurement guidance, monitoring processes, internal governance structures and cross-government coordination.

Why does it matter?

AI governance often focuses on principles, laws and technical safeguards, but implementation depends on the officials who must apply those tools in practice. Civil servants involved in procurement, regulation, service delivery and oversight need enough AI literacy to ask informed questions, identify risks and challenge vendor or institutional assumptions. Without that capacity, “human oversight” can become a procedural checkbox rather than a meaningful accountability mechanism.

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Portugal presents AMALIA as open European Portuguese language model

Portugal has presented AMALIA, its first open language model developed in European Portuguese, as part of a wider effort to strengthen national AI capacity and modernise the public sector.

Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said the project shows Portugal’s ability to develop advanced technology and contribute to Europe’s strategic autonomy.

AMALIA, short for Automatic Artificial Intelligence Multimodal Language Assistant, was developed by a consortium of Portuguese universities and research centres.

The project received an initial €5.5 million through Portugal’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, with a further €1.5 million planned for a new development phase in 2027.

Available as open code, AMALIA is intended to allow public administration bodies, companies, universities and research centres to develop their own applications.

The government says the model can support customer service, administrative process automation, knowledge management and decision-making across public services.

The AMALIA website says the project is designed to promote European Portuguese, preserve Portuguese cultural representation and support data sovereignty by enabling AI use in public administration without sensitive data leaving national territory.

The model is also expected to support use cases in education, culture and museums, media and science.

Why does it matter?

AMALIA addresses a gap in AI language infrastructure by focusing specifically on European Portuguese, a language variety often underrepresented or conflated with Brazilian Portuguese in multilingual AI systems. Open access also matters because it allows public bodies, universities and companies to adapt the model rather than relying only on closed commercial tools. The project fits a broader European debate on AI sovereignty, where governments are seeking domestic or regional capabilities in language models, data governance and public-sector AI infrastructure.

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UN opens Global Dialogue on AI Governance with call for inclusive and evidence-based cooperation

The United Nations opened its first Global Dialogue on AI Governance in Geneva, calling for inclusive, evidence-based and practical international cooperation to ensure that AI supports development while addressing risks related to safety, inequality, disinformation, children’s rights and human oversight.

The inaugural Global Dialogue on AI Governance is taking place on 6–7 July, alongside the AI for Good Global Summit and the WSIS Forum. Established in 2025, the dialogue is intended to provide a platform for governments and relevant stakeholders to discuss international cooperation, share good practices and support open, transparent and inclusive discussions on AI governance.

Opening the session, Ambassador Egriselda López of El Salvador, one of the dialogue’s co-chairs, described the meeting as the beginning of a broader process rather than a one-off event. She said Geneva should be seen not only as a place of arrival, but as a point of departure for continued work on AI governance.

López stressed that meaningful participation requires more than a seat in the room. Countries also need skills, infrastructure, financing, institutions and partnerships to shape and benefit from AI. Her co-chair, Ambassador Rein Tammsaar of Estonia, said AI is already affecting every country, regardless of its level of technological development, and that governance discussions must therefore include all regions, levels of development and relevant stakeholders.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that AI is advancing at ‘runaway speed’ and is being deployed faster than institutions can manage. He said AI is already reshaping economies, labour markets, elections and security, while society is facing what he described as an experiment being run ‘without a plan’ and ‘without consent’.

Guterres identified three major risks highlighted by scientific evidence: the speed of AI deployment, the concentration of power in a small number of companies and countries, and the erosion of truth through AI-enabled misinformation. He warned that computing power, data and talent remain concentrated, leaving many countries, particularly developing ones, with limited influence over technologies that may shape their futures.

At the same time, Guterres emphasised AI’s potential to support development, including in healthcare, education and agriculture. If shared widely, he said, AI could help make expertise more accessible and become a ‘great equaliser’ of the twenty-first century.

The Secretary-General outlined four priorities for international action: common safety standards, clear red lines grounded in human rights, stronger capacity-building for developing countries and greater transparency about AI’s environmental footprint. He also called for an AI child safety pledge, a global fund and network for AI capacity-building, and an international legal ban on lethal autonomous weapons, which he referred to as ‘killer robots’.

Annalena Baerbock, President of the UN General Assembly, said AI is developing at a pace that does not allow governments the time they had with earlier technological revolutions. She argued that AI cannot be governed by a few actors alone and must be addressed through the UN with participation from all countries and stakeholders.

Baerbock also highlighted harmful uses of AI, including deepfakes and gendered abuse. She said such abuses disproportionately target women and girls and described them as part of a broader challenge to human rights. At the same time, she pointed to AI’s potential to support the Sustainable Development Goals, including through disaster warning, agriculture, health and education.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union, framed the opening as part of a wider ‘Geneva Digital Week’ that brings together the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, the work of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, the AI for Good Global Summit and the WSIS Forum. She contrasted the current pace of AI governance discussions with the early years of the internet, noting that the UN has moved more quickly to convene global dialogue on generative AI.

Khaled El-Enany of UNESCO focused on implementation, saying that a gap remains between principles and practice. He highlighted UNESCO’s 2021 Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence as a global standard for aligning AI with human rights, sustainability and inclusion. He said UNESCO is supporting more than 80 countries in strengthening legal frameworks, institutional capacities and accountability mechanisms, and noted that over 50,000 civil servants and judicial actors have benefited from UNESCO-supported AI training.

El-Enany also said UNESCO is launching a collective reflection on a new global normative instrument to safeguard children and young people in the age of AI and digital technologies.

Amandeep Singh Gill, UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies, underlined the scale of participation in the dialogue, noting representation from more than 170 countries alongside scientists, entrepreneurs, civil society, international organisations and technical communities. He said inclusion in AI governance cannot be treated as a one-off exercise, adding that without capacity, ‘dialogues are monologues and science is just abstract’.

Singh Gill situated the dialogue within a longer UN process that includes the High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, the Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, the Global Digital Compact and the High-Level Advisory Body on AI. He said the process would continue with a second round in New York next year, expected to be held alongside the STI Forum.

The opening session showed broad agreement that AI governance should be inclusive, evidence-based, rights-oriented and supported by practical capacity-building. Speakers repeatedly stressed that AI’s potential benefits for development, education, health and agriculture must be matched by safeguards on safety, accountability, children’s rights, truth, environmental sustainability and human oversight.

Tammsaar closed the opening by saying the discussion had highlighted both AI’s opportunities and the need for stronger international cooperation to ensure that the technology contributes to sustainable development, inclusion and shared prosperity. The meeting then moved to the presentation of the preliminary report of the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence.

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WSIS Forum 2026 explores how the IGF should evolve after gaining a permanent mandate

The future of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) took centre stage at the WSIS Forum 2026, where policymakers, former diplomats, technical experts and internet governance practitioners discussed how the forum should evolve following the UN’s decision to grant it a permanent mandate.

Speakers agreed that the challenge is no longer whether the IGF should continue, but how it can become more relevant, effective and responsive to emerging issues such as AI while preserving its multistakeholder character. The discussion focused on four broad priorities, such as strengthening government participation, improving intersessional work, deepening links with national and regional IGF initiatives (NRIs), and ensuring the forum has sufficient institutional capacity and sustainable funding.

Governments need a stronger role without changing the IGF’s character

A recurring theme was how to increase meaningful government participation without transforming the IGF into a traditional intergovernmental negotiation forum.

Anriette Esterhuysen, human rights defender and computer networking pioneer from South Africa, argued that governments must participate more actively, particularly to strengthen digital policymaking in developing countries, but warned against reducing their involvement to formal speeches by senior officials.

Instead, she said governments should engage openly on practical policy challenges that require collaboration with the wider internet governance community.

Former Latvian ambassador Janis Karklins echoed this view, arguing that governments would only dedicate time and resources to the IGF if it addressed issues directly relevant to their national priorities.

Planning for the upcoming IGF in Nairobi, he suggested, should take into account the policy needs of African governments to ensure the forum delivers practical value.

Jennifer Chung, Chair of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG), also stressed that the initiative should be understood as a ‘government dialogue with stakeholders’ rather than a separate government track, preserving the IGF’s long-standing multistakeholder model.

Meanwhile, IGF Programme and Technology Manager Chengetai Masango said discussions on the exact format remain ongoing, with organisers considering how the dialogue could build on existing high-level sessions rather than creating an entirely new structure.

Stronger outcomes through year-round collaboration

Participants also debated how the IGF could produce more tangible results while remaining a platform for dialogue rather than negotiations.

Konstantinos Komaitis opened the discussion by asking how the IGF could move beyond its reputation as a ‘talking shop’ without becoming another UN negotiating process.

Esterhuysen argued that achieving greater impact requires changing the way the IGF works rather than changing its mandate. She suggested more structured intersessional work, thematic synthesis and longer-term collaboration on priority issues instead of relying primarily on standalone workshops during the annual meeting.

Andrea Calderaro, Director of Cyber Diplomacy at the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), similarly argued that the most valuable work happens between annual IGF meetings, with governments and stakeholders conducting national consultations and bringing those experiences into global discussions.

Masango defended dialogue as the forum’s core purpose, but agreed that stronger follow-up and more practical outputs are needed. He said previous initiatives, including voluntary commitments, had not always been sufficiently tracked or incorporated into future work.

National and regional IGFs seen as a growing strength

Speakers also highlighted the growing importance of national, regional and youth Internet Governance Forums, which now number more than 180 worldwide.

Esterhuysen welcomed their explicit recognition in the WSIS+20 outcome document, describing them as one of the IGF’s greatest successes.

Chung said the relationship between the global IGF and NRIs should evolve beyond annual event coordination towards continuous thematic collaboration and shared learning throughout the year.

She noted particularly strong growth among youth initiatives, especially in Africa and Asia, arguing that younger participants increasingly want meaningful involvement in shaping Internet governance discussions rather than symbolic participation.

Esterhuysen proposed a two-way model in which the global IGF identifies concrete policy questions, NRIs and intersessional groups examine them throughout the year, and the Secretariat synthesises the results into practical, non-negotiated policy options for governments and other stakeholders.

Permanent mandate brings new expectations

The discussion also touched on longer-term institutional questions, including funding and Secretariat capacity.

Although speakers acknowledged that financial sustainability remains an important challenge, they agreed that the immediate priority is preparing a successful IGF meeting in Nairobi while gradually implementing reforms in the years ahead.

Calderaro argued that the IGF should increasingly serve as a hub connecting the growing number of international digital governance processes rather than functioning only as an annual conference.

Esterhuysen also urged the forum to become more willing to address politically sensitive issues, including corporate accountability, arguing that its permanent mandate provides an opportunity to take on more substantive policy debates.

Closing the session, participants broadly agreed that the IGF’s future lies not in becoming a negotiating body, but in strengthening dialogue, improving policy-relevant outputs, deepening collaboration across national and regional initiatives, and ensuring governments, civil society, academia, the private sector and technical communities remain equally engaged as internet governance continues to evolve.

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WSIS session calls for a broader understanding of digital citizenship in the AI era

A WSIS Forum 2026 session on digital citizenship examined how governments, regulators, international organisations, and technical communities can help people participate safely and meaningfully in digital society as AI becomes more widely used.

The discussion took place during the WSIS Forum 2026, held in Geneva from 6 to 10 July. The annual multistakeholder forum, co-organised by ITU, UNESCO, UNDP, and UNCTAD, brings together governments, international organisations, civil society, the private sector, academia, and technical communities to advance implementation of the WSIS Action Lines and support digital cooperation.

Opening the session, Alik Mikaelian, project specialist at UNDP Egypt, said digital citizenship can no longer be understood only as internet access. Although billions of people are now online, she argued that meaningful participation requires the ability to think critically, understand rights and responsibilities, navigate AI-enabled environments, and engage safely in digital society. She also linked digital citizenship to trusted institutions, resilient infrastructure, and cooperation among governments, the private sector, civil society, and technical communities.

Dr Hoda Baraka, advisor to Egypt’s Minister of ICT for Technology Talent Development and a Professor of Computer Engineering at Cairo University, presented Egypt’s approach to digital citizenship, describing a digitally empowered citizen as someone able to ‘access, understand, use, create, and benefit from digital technologies’ in a safe, ethical, productive, and inclusive way. She said Egypt’s Digital Egypt agenda combines infrastructure expansion, digital government services, digital literacy, skills programmes, online safety, and support for persons with disabilities.

Baraka said Egypt is working across different age groups and professional communities, including school pupils, university students, graduates, public servants, parents, educators, and persons with disabilities. She highlighted initiatives such as Digital Egypt Marvel Schools and the Digital Egypt Cubs Initiative, as well as programmes for advanced skills and public-sector readiness. She added that online safety is becoming increasingly important due to misinformation, deepfakes, privacy risks, and threats to personal data.

Dr Abeer Shakweer, speaking from UNDP Egypt’s perspective, said the focus should shift from simply combating misinformation to strengthening information integrity. She argued that citizens need critical thinking skills and the capacity to make informed decisions in AI-shaped information environments.

Shakweer described a three-pillar UNDP programme in Egypt. The first pillar addresses misinformation and disinformation through an assessment of the information ecosystem and a bilingual Arabic-English toolkit for youth and journalists. She said the toolkit had been used to train more than 120 young people and 25 journalism trainers. The second pillar explores how AI can be used both to spread and to counter false information, while the third embeds capacity development across public-facing digital programmes, including digital transformation, digital public infrastructure, and future intelligence.

Krisstina Rao focused on digital public infrastructure (DPI), describing it as shared, reusable infrastructure that supports services across government rather than separate systems developed by individual ministries or departments. She cited digital identity, payment systems, and consent-based data exchange as examples.

Rao said governments cannot build complex DPI systems alone and need early collaboration with stakeholders who can contribute expertise on inclusion, safety, accountability, and adoption. She warned that if countries continue maintaining both digital and analogue systems, because many people remain excluded, costs remain high, and the full value of DPI is reduced. She referred to examples, including Brazil’s PIX forum and Ethiopia’s early collaboration with UNHCR to connect digital identity systems with refugee registration.

Dr Chafic Chaya stressed that digital citizenship should not be separated from internet infrastructure. He said discussions often focus on individual behaviour, such as staying safe online or protecting data, but that meaningful participation also depends on resilient connectivity, reliable platforms, and secure environments. He added that this is particularly important in the Global South, where access may expand faster than resilience and capacity development.

Her Excellency Lara Khateeb brought a regulatory perspective, saying rules must remain flexible and adaptive because technology changes quickly. She said Jordan benchmarks international practices and uses public consultation to make regulations more workable. She described this as a form of ‘reverse engineering’, starting from available technologies and practical solutions before shaping rules around them.

Khateeb cited Jordan’s work on child online protection as an example, explaining that regulators consulted telecom operators about available technical solutions and international platforms about how those systems interact. She also emphasised data protection, coordination with cybersecurity agencies, and awareness campaigns tailored to different groups, including children, women, businesses, and SMEs.

Nicholas Field highlighted the role of young people in digital citizenship. Drawing on work with Omidyar Network and UNICEF, he said young people often want to engage and are ready to contribute, but are frequently treated as an afterthought in policymaking. He noted that they often help older family members use digital services and argued that governments should reach them through the channels they actually use, including influencers, YouTube, and podcasts.

Field also raised the issue of AI skills among teachers, saying educators cannot be expected to guide responsible AI use if they do not understand the technology themselves. He said institutions should not assume students will avoid AI tools, but should instead define clear parameters for responsible and acceptable use.

The session also discussed sandboxes as practical tools for testing digital systems before full deployment. Field described sandboxes as time-bound technical environments created for a specific learning purpose. He said they can help regulators, companies, and citizens build trust through safe experimentation. He cited the French identity sandbox, which contributed to work around interoperable digital identity, and the GovStack interoperability sandbox, which tests components such as ID, consent, registers, messaging, and workflow.

Shakweer later shifted the discussion from citizens to institutions, arguing that digital transformation requires public bodies to assess their own readiness and invest in capacity development. She said UNDP uses digital and AI readiness assessment tools to help organisations understand their current position and develop practical roadmaps. In Egypt, she said, such assessments had been applied with the Ministry of Justice and started with the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority.

Returning to AI governance, Al-Khateeb said regulators should encourage responsible AI use rather than ban it. She criticised approaches that prohibit AI use outright, arguing that people should instead be taught to use the technology responsibly, including by checking sources and understanding risks. She also described how Jordan’s Telecommunications Regulatory Commission uses an internal AI system, not connected to the internet, to search regulations and decisions and support regulatory work.

Baraka closed the discussion by outlining Egypt’s responsible AI work. She said Egypt has an ethical charter, a governance framework, guidelines for developers and deployers, and procurement guidance for public institutions buying AI systems. However, she stressed that frameworks alone are not enough and that institutions need practical tools to apply them before and after deployment.

She also highlighted Egypt’s emerging AI Audit Lab, developed with support from UNDP, GSMA, GIZ, and WebSphere, as a way to help move from principles to implementation. The lab is intended to support Egyptian programmers, developers, and SMEs in testing and building responsible AI systems, including around fairness, accountability, transparency, openness, interoperability, and explainability.

Across the session, speakers agreed that digital citizenship in the AI era requires more than connectivity. It depends on critical thinking, trusted public institutions, secure infrastructure, inclusive DPI, flexible regulation, AI literacy, online safety, and practical tools that allow citizens and institutions to use digital technologies responsibly.

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MEPs to debate EU AI cybersecurity strategy

Members of the European Parliament are set to question the European Commission on its latest AI and cybersecurity proposals, including a new AI cybersecurity strategy expected to be unveiled on 7 July.

According to the European Parliament’s plenary newsletter, the Commission’s action plan is expected to include measures to help EU member states and companies address AI-related cybersecurity risks.

The strategy is also expected to strengthen Europe’s AI cybersecurity capabilities as policymakers examine how AI is reshaping both cyber threats and cyber defence.

The debate follows the European Commission’s welcome of the G7 cybersecurity declaration on strengthening global cyber resilience. Parliament is also considering two legislative proposals collectively referred to as the ‘Cybersecurity Act 2‘.

The proposals are expected to address issues including the NIS2 framework, the role of the EU Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), the EU cybersecurity certification framework and ICT supply chain security.

The debate is scheduled for 7 July, as part of a European Com m ission statement followed by parliamentary scrutiny.

Why does it matter?

The debate shows that AI-related cybersecurity risks are becoming part of the EU’s broader cyber resilience agenda. By linking AI policy with NIS2, ENISA, certification and supply chain security, the EU is preparing to treat AI not only as an innovation priority but also as a cybersecurity concern.

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UNESCO summit advances AI ethics roadmap for Latin America and Caribbean

Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have adopted a Ministerial Declaration and a regional roadmap on AI ethics for 2026–2027.

The documents were adopted at the Third Ministerial Summit and High-Level Authorities Meeting on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in the Dominican Republic.

The summit was organised by UNESCO, the Government of the Dominican Republic, the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean and other partners, with support from the European Union.

Participants reaffirmed their commitment to implementing UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, adopted by UNESCO member states as a global normative framework for AI governance.

The roadmap sets priorities for technical cooperation, the exchange of regulatory experience and stronger institutional capacities for ethical and responsible AI policy.

It builds on earlier regional declarations adopted in Santiago in 2023 and Montevideo in 2024, moving the regional process from shared principles towards implementation.

The roadmap frames AI as a cross-cutting public policy issue, calling for participation from sectors including education, health, the economy, culture, the environment, justice, planning, budgeting and subnational government.

Participating states also identified capacity development as a regional priority, including digital literacy and training for public officials, educators, judicial practitioners, journalists, researchers, businesses and citizens.

The process will continue through five regional working groups, expanded technical exchanges and closer coordination with other international AI governance initiatives.

Why does it matter?

The roadmap gives Latin America and the Caribbean a more structured way to coordinate AI policy across countries, rather than developing national approaches in isolation. Its value will depend on whether regional working groups can turn broad ethical commitments into practical tools, stronger public institutions and shared regulatory capacity. The focus on education, environment, public administration and subnational government also shows that AI governance is being treated as a whole-of-society policy issue, not only a technology-sector concern.

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