Report on WSIS+20 Open Consultations – 29 July 2025 (Test to be deleted)

---

10 Key points from deliberation

1. Strengthened multi-stakeholder governance: The multi-stakeholder model is seen as essential and must be reinforced, not diluted, with calls for its consistent application across all digital governance processes.
2. Permanent mandate for the IGF: The Internet Governance Forum should be institutionalised as a permanent UN body with a stable, sustainable budget and a strengthened secretariat to enhance its impact.
3. Multidimensional digital divide: The focus must shift from basic connectivity to addressing the ‘usage gap’, which includes barriers of affordability, skills, relevant local content, and access to advanced technologies like AI.
4. Anchoring in human rights: The WSIS+20 outcome must be firmly grounded in international human rights law, referencing instruments like the UDHR and ICCPR, and reaffirm that rights offline also apply online.
5. Environmental sustainability of digitalisation: The environmental cost of digital technologies, from data centre energy use to e-waste, must be explicitly recognised and mitigated through ‘green-by-design’ principles and circular economy models.
6. Digital public infrastructure (DPI) as an equitable model: Open-source, interoperable DPI was highlighted as a successful model for inclusive digital transformation, particularly in the global south.
7. Integration with the Global Digital Compact (GDC): To avoid duplication, the implementation of the GDC should be integrated into the WSIS framework via a joint roadmap, ensuring coherence in UN digital processes.
8. Localised and community-driven solutions: Effective digital development requires hyper-local, decentralised models that are community-driven and tailored to local languages, cultures, and needs, moving away from one-size-fits-all solutions.
9. Corporate accountability and financing: There is a need for stronger mechanisms to hold technology corporations accountable for human rights violations and to explore innovative financing, such as digital development taxes, to bridge the digital divide.
10. Gender and youth as cross-cutting priorities: Gender equality and meaningful youth engagement must be mainstreamed across all action lines, with specific proposals for a standalone gender action line and dedicated metrics for youth participation.

---

Key points per speaker

Total number of speakers: 66

Suela Janina, Co-facilitator (Albania)

• Opening and process: Opened the consultation, emphasising its role in informing the zero draft of the WSIS+20 outcome document and urging speakers to be concise.
• Multi-stakeholder inclusion: Stressed the importance of bringing together member states and all stakeholder communities in a shared dialogue.
• Thematic structure: Noted the consultation was structured around the thematic areas of the elements paper to gather verbal feedback on written inputs.

Ekitela Lokaale, Co-facilitator (Kenya)

• Opportunity for joint dialogue: Highlighted the session as an opportunity for continued dialogue with both member states and stakeholders present.
• Informal guidance: Acknowledged the thematic structure but encouraged cross-cutting interventions, asking for concise remarks to directly inform the drafting process.
• Housekeeping: Handed over to the secretariat for practical announcements before commencing the substantive discussion.

Deniz Susar, Secretariat

• Logistical management: Outlined the session’s structure, speaking list order, and confirmed the meeting was being recorded for later publication.
• Flexibility on themes: Clarified that while speakers were listed under specific themes, interventions on other sections of the elements paper were welcome.

Arpita Kanjilal, Digital Empowerment Foundation

• Hyper-local digital models: Advocated for decentralised, community-driven digital development models tailored to local contexts, languages, and needs, arguing that top-down approaches often fail.
• Human-centric technology: Emphasised that technology must serve people and include a ‘human touch’ rather than being fully automated, to build trust and ensure relevance.
• Critique of tech-only policies: Warned that technology-centric policies are driving deeper exclusion and widening the digital divide for marginalised communities.
• Grassroots empowerment: Showcased a model of ‘information entrepreneurs’ (Suchana Praneurs) as local leaders enabling access to information and e-governance.

Socheata Sokhachan, NetMission.Asia

• Peace as a foundation: Spoke from Cambodia’s experience to stress that peace is the essential foundation for digital development and for ensuring no one is left behind.
• Beyond access to connectivity: Called for a rights-based and user-centred approach to ICT development that includes affordability, service quality, and fair competition, not just infrastructure rollout.
• Youth as co-creators: Urged for youth to be embedded as co-creators of ICT strategies, not just beneficiaries, and for support of youth-led digital literacy and innovation programmes.

Jin Tanaka, University Student Chamber International

• AI in education – pros and cons: Presented on the dual nature of AI in education, noting its potential for personalised learning while highlighting risks like misinformation and increased burden on teachers to verify AI-generated content.
• Multi-layered AI verification: Described a personal project using a three-AI system to generate ideas, check against official guidelines, and judge correctness, acknowledging it is still under development.
• Goal for 2030: Expressed a goal to expand such systems by 2030 to transform education and alleviate financial and logistical difficulties for students and teachers.

Cheryl Miller, United States Council for International Business (USCIB)

• Private sector challenges: Identified the digital divide, internet fragmentation, and inconsistent application of the multi-stakeholder model as key challenges for the digital economy.
• Barriers to connectivity: Cited that 2.6 billion people remain unconnected due to financial, technological, and regulatory barriers, a gap widened by advanced technologies like AI.
• Support for multi-stakeholderism: Pointed to the IGF as a successful example of the multi-stakeholder approach and called for policy environments that support innovation, investment, and cross-border data flows.
• Call for interoperable AI governance: Urged for AI governance based on interoperable, inclusive, and rights-based approaches to avoid fragmented regulatory regimes.

Jose Scandiucci, Permanent Mission of Brazil to the UN

• Stock-taking and alignment: Stressed the need for the WSIS+20 document to take stock of what has worked and align the framework with current demands to bridge digital divides and include developing countries.
• Integration with GDC: Proposed a joint WSIS-GDC roadmap to ensure budgetary efficiency and avoid duplication of efforts, integrating GDC implementation within the WSIS process.
• Strengthening digital governance: Advocated for the strengthening of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) with a permanent mandate and stable budget, suggesting a potential name change to ‘Digital Governance Forum’.

Aditya Vikram Dube, Center for Development of Advanced Computing (India)

• Broadening scope welcomed: Welcomed the elements paper’s inclusion of new themes like the digital economy, AI, and environmental sustainability, absent from earlier outcomes.
• Transformative potential of DPI: Highlighted Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) as a globally relevant model for inclusive digital transformation, emphasising its open-source, modular, and interoperable nature.
• Affordability and capacity building: Identified affordability of internet and the need for digital literacy campaigns as critical barriers to meaningful participation that must be addressed.

Shumaila Hussain, Tech Global Institute

• Remedying structural imbalances: Called for the zero draft to include provisions to remedy structural imbalances, asymmetric data flows, and value extraction from the global south.
• Corporate accountability and funding: Proposed a global fund, financed by levies on digital monopolies, to support DPI in developing countries and called for connectivity to be recognised as a human right.
• Breaking big tech dominance: Recommended requiring interoperability, allocating resources for community-led platforms, and ensuring digital growth advances gender-responsive and climate-just transitions.

Baratang Miya, Girl Hype and Women Who Code

• Digital economic inclusion for women and youth: Identified significant disparities for women and youth in access, skills, and economic participation in the digital economy.
• Barriers cited: Cited statistics: 3.7 billion offline (with women disproportionately affected), 60% of African youth lack basic digital competencies, and women-led startups receive less than 2% of venture capital.
• Actionable solutions: Proposed gender-responsive funding, digital skills programmes, policy reforms, and investment in last-mile connectivity to ensure the digital economy becomes a force for equality.

Giacomo Mazzone, IGF Policy Network for Meaningful Access

• Meaningful access defined: Focused on promoting access that is in local languages, useful for communities (e-governance, health, education), safe, secure, and affordable.
• Breaking down silos: Emphasised that the WSIS process has been useful for allowing different communities to work together and break down barriers, a practice that must continue for GDC implementation.

Ana María Suárez Franco, Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN)

• Corporate accountability deficit: Argued that exhorting tech corporations to respect the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights has not been successful, leaving a gap in accountability for cross-border harms.
• State obligations to protect: Called for the zero draft to urge states to protect against human rights abuses by their digital businesses in global value chains, including obligations to regulate, monitor, and punish abusers.
• Information integrity and epistemic rights: Urged the zero draft to direct UNESCO to further work on guarantees for epistemic rights, disclosure of AI guidelines, and human rights-based regulatory frameworks for platforms.

Sophia Longwe, Wikimedia

• Erosion of multi-stakeholder approach: Expressed concern that the social and cultural development section of the elements paper primarily emphasises governments and national strategies, marginalising other stakeholders.
• Open knowledge as central: Called for Action Line C3 to be improved to an action line on ‘access to information, knowledge and the digital commons’, recognising the central role of open knowledge and volunteer work like Wikipedia.
• Embedding accountability: Recommended the WSIS+20 outcome embed accountability mechanisms, a clear timeline, secure funding for the IGF, and establish stronger links between WSIS, the GDC, and the SDGs.

Shradhanjali Sarma, Cyber Cafe Association of India

• Environmental cost of AI: Highlighted the often-overlooked carbon footprint of AI, noting that a single AI query can use up to 10 times more electricity than a standard web search.
• Uneven environmental burden: Pointed out that the environmental burdens of AI are disproportionately felt in developing countries, creating a sustainability and equity gap.
• Green AI measures: Proposed five measures: promoting energy-efficient servers and algorithms, prioritising efficiency in AI training, mandating e-waste management, and shifting to renewable energy sources for AI infrastructure.

María Soledad Vogliano, Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group)

• Challenging the ‘green tech’ narrative: Challenged the dominant narrative that digital tech is dematerialised and inherently green, pointing to severe material, environmental, and social costs from semiconductor supply chains to data centres.
• Six priorities for sustainability: Offered six forward-looking priorities: right to repair, regulating data centre expansion, rebalancing energy priorities in developing countries, avoiding harmful energy sources, acknowledging environmental costs, and advancing a meaningful circular economy.
• Democratic governance and accountability: Stated that a sustainable digital future requires democratic governance, corporate accountability, and respect for affected communities and ecosystems.

Jasmine Yee man Ko, Hong Kong Youth IGF

• Youth perspective on environment: Shared the youth perspective that reducing the digital sector’s environmental footprint is a moral imperative for their generation.
• Grassroots action: Highlighted work by grassroots organisations in her region, like Carbon Care InnoLab, which catalyse climate action and responsible energy use.
• Call for concrete commitments: Urged the WSIS+20 to strongly emphasise a commitment to a truly circular economy, innovation in greener ICT, and embedding environmental considerations in all digital policy making.

Koudy Wanee, Ministry of Communication and Telecommunications, Digital Affairs of Senegal

• Digital divide as a chasm: Framed the digital divide as a growing chasm threatening to leave entire nations and generations behind, encompassing connectivity, skills, and innovation divides.
• Bold, forward-looking action lines: Argued that updating the WSIS action lines requires a transformation, not an adjustment, embedding digital inclusion at the core of every action line from e-government to AI ethics.
• Multi-stakeholder governance for the global south: Emphasised the need for multi-stakeholder governance models that give the global south a seat at the table.

Soumya Nair, Permanent Mission of India to the UN

• Multidimensional digital divide: Emphasised that the divide persists not only across regions but within societies, affecting rural communities, women, persons with disabilities, and linguistic minorities.
• Technology capacity gap: Highlighted a growing concentration of control over semiconductor manufacturing and high-performance computing in a few countries and firms, deepening the technology gap for the global south.
• AI for Indian languages: Noted India’s progress in advancing AI technology for Indian languages through open-source contributions as a way to address language barriers.

Roddy McGlynn, Global Systems for Mobile Communication Association (GSMA)

• The usage gap: Presented data that while broadband networks reach 96% of the global population, only 57% use mobile internet, meaning the usage gap (3 billion people) is nine times the size of the coverage gap.
• Barriers to adoption: Identified key barriers to adoption as affordability of handsets, literacy and digital skills, and safety and security concerns.
• Gender digital divide: Cited that women in low and middle income countries are 14% less likely to use mobile internet than men, resulting in 235 million fewer women online.

James Kunle Olorundare, Internet Society Nigeria Chapter

• Digital divide beyond connectivity: Defined the digital divide as encompassing disparities in access to emerging technologies like AI and data systems, not just connectivity.
• Role of the IGF: Argued that the IGF’s multi-stakeholder model is critical for sustained progress and must be strengthened, with its scope evolving to include broader digital governance.
• Alignment with action lines and GDC: Proposed aligning efforts with WSIS Action Lines C2, C7, C11 and the GDC’s objectives to drive equitable digital ecosystems and avoid digital colonialism.

Paul Blaker, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (United Kingdom)

• Enabling environment agenda: Welcomed the focus on the enabling environment and hoped its different elements would be developed more in the zero draft, including effective use of universal service funds and competition.
• Stronger human rights language: Called for stronger and clearer human rights language fully based on the ICCPR and against internet shutdowns.
• Permanent IGF mandate: Supported a new ongoing mandate for the IGF without a time limitation and recognition of local and regional IGFs.
• Avoiding ‘enhanced cooperation’ debates: Urged the zero draft to reflect agreed GDC language and not reopen fruitless debates about the phrase ‘enhanced cooperation’.

Timea Suto, International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)

• Defining the enabling environment: Argued the zero draft should more clearly define an enabling environment, providing legal stability, regulatory clarity, and openness (especially for cross-border data flows).
• Whole-of-government approach: Stated that a whole-of-government approach is necessary due to digital transformation affecting every sector, ensuring policy coherence.
• Multi-stakeholder engagement: Emphasised that multi-stakeholder engagement is key to effective policy design, ensuring policies are grounded in practical realities and local needs.

Fiona Alexander, American University

• Meaningful multi-stakeholder engagement: Commended the co-facilitators for efforts to create avenues for stakeholder involvement but expressed disappointment that only 15% of the 91 scheduled speakers were governments.
• Fact-based and forward-looking: Recommended the outcome be fact-based, recognise progress, and not simply restate past disputes, building on WSIS+10 and GDC language.
• Embrace the IGF: Stated it is past time for the UN system to fully embrace the IGF, renew it with a permanent mandate, and allocate resources.
• Avoid duplication and unclear phrases: Advised that GDC implementation should move into the existing WSIS framework and to avoid recycling unclear phrases like ‘enhanced cooperation’.

Elonnai Hickok, Global Network Initiative (GNI)

• Human rights-based enabling environment: Stated that to be enabling, regulatory environments must be grounded in and aligned with international human rights frameworks, including the UDHR, ICCPR, and UNGPs.
• IGF strengthening: Called for the promotion of the multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance, a permanent and funded IGF mandate, and recognition of the role of national and regional IGFs.
• Role of OHCHR: Stressed the role of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in digital governance should be recognised.

Mrinalini Dayal, Alliance for Universal Digital Rights

• Standalone gender action line: Proposed the establishment of a standalone WSIS action line on gender with defined goals, measurable targets, and dedicated resources.
• Key barriers: Identified lack of a gender perspective across action lines, technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), unaccountable tech corporations, and digital colonialism as critical barriers.
• Gender-just digital governance: Recommended mandatory gender impact assessments, 50% women’s representation in governance bodies, and public financing for meaningful access.

Carlos Baca Feldman, Rhizomatica

• Community-led connectivity: Argued that indigenous and rural communities remain excluded from direct access to resources and decision-making, despite creating their own connectivity solutions.
• Direct and flexible funding: Called for direct, flexible, and culturally grounded funding to support communities, alongside strategies for capacity building in financial management and governance.
• Legal recognition of collectives: Emphasised the need for the legal recognition of collective actors so they can receive funds and manage their own connectivity solutions.

Sadhana Sanjay, Global Digital Justice Forum / IT for Change

• Public financing deficit: Argued that stark digital inequalities are traced to a failure of market-led approaches and anachronistic tax regimes that deprive countries of resources for digital infrastructure.
• Digital development tax: Recommended a digital development tax whereby dominant tech corporations contribute to connectivity and a safer digital world.
• Global task force on financing: Proposed a global task force on financing for inclusive digital transformation to enable coordinated fiscal reform.

Anriette Esterhuysen, Association for Progressive Communications (APC)

• Five critical challenges: Highlighted digital inequality, insufficient financing, erosion of the public interest, gaps in human rights integration, and environmental harms as key challenges.
• Five priorities for action: Prioritised diversifying access markets, establishing a task force for blended financing, reclaiming the public interest through regulation, strengthening human rights language, and mainstreaming environmental sustainability.
• Strengthening the WSIS framework: Recommended integrating GDC language, gender equality, making the IGF mandate permanent, and recognising the relevance of enhanced cooperation for the global south.

Elina Volksone, Microsoft

• Balanced human rights framing: Encouraged a reaffirmation of human rights while also expanding the narrative to recognise technology’s constructive role in upholding and advancing these values.
• Technology as a driver of equity: Argued technology should be understood as a driver of equity, dignity, and societal resilience, not solely viewed as a risk.
• Explicit reference to UDHR: Expressed concern over the omission of explicit references to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in the human rights section of the elements paper.

Ellie McDonald, Global Digital Rights Coalition for WSIS

• Anchoring in international law: On behalf of a coalition, recommended the zero draft be anchored in international human rights law, reaffirm state obligations, and clarify that limitations on rights must meet principles of legality, necessity, and proportionality.
• Formal role for OHCHR: Proposed assigning the OHCHR the responsibility to ensure human rights are protected in the context of the WSIS framework.
• Operationalising multi-stakeholderism: Recommended considering proposals to operationalise the multi-stakeholder approach, building on initiatives like the São Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines.

Jutta Croll, Digital Opportunities Foundation

• Children’s rights in the digital environment: Spoke from a child rights perspective, welcoming references in the elements paper but suggesting amendments to ensure a balanced approach that respects children’s rights to protection, provision, and participation equally.
• Incorporating General Comment 25: Underlined the need to uphold the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and incorporate its General Comment No. 25 on children’s rights in the digital environment.
• Children’s representation: Suggested amending the text to ensure children’s perspectives are presented by themselves or advocates and given due weight in internet governance.

Laura Becana Ball, Global Forum for Media Development

• Independent journalism as essential: Argued that independent journalism and public interest media are essential to a people-centred information society and key to ensuring access to reliable information.
• Strengthening media systems: Stated that strengthening journalism independence and sustainability must be a key priority, supported with safeguards against online harassment and sustained funding.
• Reinforce multi-stakeholder model: Echoed calls to reinforce the multi-stakeholder governance model, institutionalise the IGF, and implement the GDC within the WSIS framework.

Kim Ringmar Sylwander, Digital Futures for Children’s Center, LSE

• Inadequate reflection of children’s rights: Argued that despite international law, children’s rights remain inadequately reflected in global policy, leading to routine violations in the digital environment.
• Five priorities from expert consultation: Drew on a global expert consultation to list priorities: streamlining recognition of children as distinct rights holders, focusing on unequal access, embedding child rights by design, enforcing through binding regulation, and ensuring UN independence from tech interests.
• Systematic integration: Concluded that children’s rights must be systematically integrated and enforced, not just acknowledged, in the WSIS+20 process.

Roman Zimin, Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN

• WSIS as key bridging process: Stated that WSIS remains the key UN process for bridging the digital gap through ICT capacity building, technology transfer, and training.
• Harmonisation and avoiding duplication: Emphasised the need to harmonise WSIS implementation with other digital initiatives to avoid duplication and opposed adding ‘disputable concepts’ like information integrity.
• ICT security in specialised formats: Called for discussing ICT security issues within specialised UN formats (e.g., the OEWG) and preferred terms like ‘ICT security’ over ‘cyber’ terminology, which is non-consensus.

Lucien Castex, Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération (AFNIC)

• Multistakeholder cooperation for trust: Strongly believed that implementing WSIS outcomes and reinforcing trust has been greatly facilitated by multistakeholder cooperation in developing standards and policy.
• Key role of technical bodies: Highlighted the work of ICANN and the IETF as key to shaping the internet’s future through continuous improvement and consensus-driven processes.
• Explicit identification of technical community: Stressed the need to explicitly identify and mention the technical community and academia as key stakeholders in the zero draft.

Pablo Hinojosa, Consultant

• From norms to practical implementation: Urged that international norms and frameworks must translate into practical implementation that responds to operational needs.
• Equitable capacity building: Committed to equitable and efficient capacity building without new budgets by empowering local solutions and leveraging peer-to-peer learning, citing the Women in Cyber Fellowship as a model.
• Resilience as bedrock of trust: Argued that confidence and security must be understood through the lens of resilience (technical, institutional, human), where multistakeholderism is a necessity.

Desiree Milosevic, RIPE NCC

• Persistent digital divide: Noted that despite progress, the digital divide remains a pressing challenge, particularly for women and girls, requiring scaled-up investment.
• Lack of implementation mechanisms: Identified a lack of clear implementation and follow-up mechanisms as a challenge, as many states have not integrated WSIS action lines into national strategies.
• Safeguarding the open internet: Stated that the open, interoperable, and secure internet must be safeguarded as it is essential for meeting the SDGs.

Rosalia Morales, Technical Community Coalition for Multistakeholderism

• Permanent IGF mandate: On behalf of a technical community coalition, urged member states to support a permanent mandate for the IGF to allow for investment in its improvement and development.
• Diversified funding: Advocated for a diversified funding approach to ensure sustainable, robust funding and appropriate multi-stakeholder support.
• Leveraging existing infrastructure: Argued that the existing WSIS infrastructure (WSIS Forum, IGF) are the logical venues for centering implementation and follow-up of digital policy outputs.

Abdeldjalil Bachar Bong, House of Africa

• Capacity building and reduced cost: Focused on breaking the digital divide through digital capacity building, reducing the cost of internet access, and promoting local content in local languages.
• Supporting environmental sustainability: Called for supporting environmental and sustainable digital growth and addressing social and cultural barriers.
• Key role of IGF and NRIs: Emphasised the key role of the IGF, its permanent mandate, sustainable funding, and the role of national and regional initiatives (NRIs).

Meline Svadjian, Permanent Mission of Canada to the UN (on behalf of Canada and Australia)

• Multistakeholder internet governance: Reaffirmed that internet governance should be global and multistakeholder in nature, referencing the practical São Paulo multistakeholder guidelines.
• Strong IGF mandate: Supported reaffirming a strong and enduring mandate for the IGF and its national and regional initiatives.
• Dedicated human rights section: Recommended a dedicated section on human rights, explicitly recognising human rights as a cross-cutting issue grounded in international law, and a formal role for OHCHR.
• Avoiding duplication on AI: Acknowledged AI significance but advised avoiding duplicating work of the GDC and related initiatives, reinforcing existing commitments.

Konstantinos Komaitis, Atlantic Council

• Internet-development link is foundational: Argued the link between the internet and development is no longer aspirational but foundational, and closing the digital divide is a development imperative.
• Multistakeholder model as the engine: Stated the multistakeholder model is the engine that empowers a healthy internet and Paragraph 34 of the Tunis Agenda must stand.
• Strengthen, don’t just renew, the IGF: Argued we don’t just need to renew the IGF, but strengthen it, make it permanent, funded, and support its iterations, as it is a frontline for contesting visions of the internet.

Daphné Barbotte, EU Delegation to the UN

• EU proposals to strengthen IGF: On behalf of the EU, proposed strengthening the IGF through permanent institutionalisation, sustainable UN funding, a dedicated Secretariat director, and greater inclusion of developing countries.
• Enhancing policy impact: Proposed reinforcing multi-year thematic tracks and ensuring IGF conclusions are linked to WSIS Action Lines to create a feedback loop.
• Multi-stakeholder governance labs: Proposed creating multi-stakeholder governance labs within the IGF to explore implications of emerging technologies and co-create innovative solutions.

Nick Ashton-Hart, APCO Worldwide

• Improving coordination between WSIS pillars: Recommended improving coordination between the three main WSIS pillars (IGF, WSIS Forum, CSTD) to leverage their complementary strengths and create a positive feedback loop.
• Engaging development financiers: Proposed the zero draft should endorse greater participation by Bretton Woods Institutions and regional development banks in the WSIS process to help countries access resources.
• Leveraging universal service funds: Recommended recognising how deployment of universal service funds can be leveraged using best practices to connect the unconnected.

Titti Cassa, Agency for Digital Italy

• Digital governance fragmentation: Noted that digital governance remains fragmented with key initiatives like WSIS, GDC, and SDGs operating in parallel with limited coordination.
• IGF as a bridge: Argued the IGF ecosystem is well positioned to act as a bridge across these processes and proposed concrete steps: establishing it as permanent, greater integration, ensuring inclusivity, and introducing robust monitoring for WSIS.
• Strategic role for IGF: Proposed the IGF should assume a more strategic role in shaping the global digital agenda, serving as a space for promoting outcome implementation.

William Drake, Columbia Institute for Teleinformation

• Risks of ‘enhanced cooperation’: Expressed concern that foregrounding the ambiguous term ‘enhanced cooperation’ could lead to division and deadlock, given today’s hyper-polarised environment.
• Clarity on intent: Suggested a solution would be for governments to make clear that a new intergovernmental organisation is not what they have in mind by ‘enhanced cooperation’, to avoid a breakdown.
• Call for interactivity: Recalled useful government-stakeholder dialogues from the original WSIS process and urged for anything to approximate that level of interactivity in this review.

Claire Sophie Patzig, Youth IGF Germany

• NRIs as a core pillar: Delivered a joint statement endorsing the essential role of National and Regional IGF Initiatives (NRIs) as a core pillar of global internet governance.
• Strength of multistakeholder model: Argued that NRIs embody the multistakeholder spirit and their work bridges global vision with local realities, which is the true strength of the model.
• Calls to action: The statement called for recognition of NRIs, continued strengthening of the multistakeholder model, a permanent IGF mandate, and safeguarding technological neutrality.

Pascal Bekono, Cameroon Ministry of Justice

• Regulatory lag in LDCs: Noted that regulatory mechanisms for data governance are being adopted globally, but least developed countries are lagging behind in implementation.
• Common data governance policies: Maintained that the WSIS multi-stakeholder approach and the IGF should continue to facilitate inclusive dialogue towards the adoption of common data governance policies.
• Global data regulatory body: Believed it is important to establish a global data regulatory body to guarantee equitable access and fair protection for citizens against violation and abuse.

Jacqueline Pigatto, Data Privacy Brazil

• Data justice lens: Advocated for approaching data governance through a ‘data justice’ lens, looking beyond privacy to consider broader human rights implications on social protection, work, education, and health.
• Balancing security and rights: Called for a better balance between security (e.g., surveillance) and the protection of human rights, suggesting a human rights-based approach can help reconcile these tensions.
• Role of OHCHR: Called attention to the valuable role the OHCHR could play in the CSTD Working Group on Data Governance regarding human rights impacts.

Gabriel Delsol, Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA)

• AI through existing mechanisms: Recommended the WSIS review engage on AI through existing action lines and mechanisms to avoid duplication and potential friction.
• Support existing UN efforts: Argued the process should support and defer to outcomes under the Global Digital Compact (e.g., the scientific panel, global dialogue on AI).
• UN as a convening forum: Viewed the UN’s role as a facilitating agent for convening and information sharing on AI, rather than prescribing specific governance mechanisms.

Paloma Lara Castro, Derechos Digitales

• AI and new colonialism: Argued that the concentration of AI development in a few global north countries and corporations is generating new forms of digital colonialism through data extraction and bias.
• Gender-based and decolonial approaches: Urged WSIS+20 to promote gender-based and decolonial approaches to data and AI governance that prioritize collective rights and community stewardship.
• Mandatory gender impact assessments: Instituted that mandatory gender impact assessments must be conducted before deployment of all AI systems.

Laura O’Brien, Access Now

• Human rights risks of AI: Highlighted that deploying AI without safeguards can facilitate human rights violations, exacerbate social power imbalances, and create new risks like AI-powered surveillance.
• Grounded in international law: Recommended the zero draft be grounded in international human rights law, reaffirm that any interference with privacy must be necessary and proportionate, and reassert private sector responsibilities to conduct human rights due diligence.
• Avoid duplication on AI governance: Underscored the need to avoid duplication, particularly on AI governance, and echoed calls to institutionalise the IGF as a permanent structure.

Christian Schlaepfer, Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the UN

• Gratitude for process: Expressed gratitude for the co-facilitators’ leadership, transparency, and inclusivity, exemplified by the Multistakeholder Sounding Board.
• Build on established consensus: Underscored the importance of building on established consensus, reaffirming foundational outcomes, and prioritising discussions on emerging challenges not fully addressed before.
• Implementation as shared priority: Stated that strengthening the WSIS framework requires revitalised mechanisms like an updated ANeGIS, a more strategic role for CSTD and IGF, and exploring tools like a WSIS helpdesk.

Kayode Oyeyemi, Africa ICT Alliance (AFICTA)

• Capacity building for Africa’s transformation: Focused on capacity building as a critical enabler for Africa’s digital transformation, citing a World Bank figure that 230 million jobs in SSA will require digital skills by 2030.
• Scalable and inclusive programmes: Advocated for scalable, industry-aligned training in emerging technologies, prioritising women and underserved communities, and delivered through public-private partnerships.
• Support for MSMEs: Noted that 40% of Africa’s 100 million MSMEs have little digital integration and called for targeted training to help them leverage e-commerce and digital finance.

Dheeraj Rajput, Indian Ministry of Electronics and IT

• Capacity building as a central pillar: Proposed that capacity building and digital literacy must be treated as a central pillar of WSIS action lines, not a complementary activity.
• Structured programmes for future leaders: Recommended nurturing structured internship and fellowship programmes to create a pipeline of future leaders to guide WSIS action lines.
• Open knowledge and measurable outcomes: Believed open knowledge-based datasets and multi-stakeholder platforms can democratise expertise, and called for scalable models linked to measurable outcomes.

Bea Guevarra, NetMission.Asia

• Capacity building beyond training: Argued that for youth in the APAC region, capacity building is about opening doors to opportunity, leadership, and long-term inclusion, not just digital literacy.
• Localised and multilingual: Called for capacity building that is localised and multilingual so people see themselves in the digital world, including investing in local language AI models.
• Resourced participation: Emphasised that meaningful capacity building must be properly resourced through fellowships, mentorships, and paid opportunities so participation leads to empowerment, not burnout.

Alexey Trepykhalin, ICANN

• Reflecting evolution of internet governance: Encouraged the zero draft to reflect the evolution of the internet and the multi-stakeholder model since WSIS, recognising its achievements, rather than reverting to legacy language.
• Leverage the IGF: Stated that the WSIS implementation beyond 2025 should leverage the existing and mature IGF assembly, which requires sustainable resources and a strengthened mandate.
• Role of UN agencies: Recognised the role of UN agencies like ITU and UNESCO in implementing WSIS action lines, citing a recent UNESCO-ICANN agreement to enhance linguistic diversity.

Judith Hellerstein, IGF Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disabilities

• Tangential mention of disability: Stated that despite years of advocacy, the digital divide facing persons with disabilities is only mentioned tangentially in the elements paper.
• Changing mindsets for inclusion: Argued that changing the mindset of event organisers and knowledge producers is needed to ensure accessibility for people who access knowledge differently.
• Concrete actions for inclusion: Called for funding accessible training materials co-created with people with disability, setting diversity targets, creating mentorship pathways, and integrating disability indicators into monitoring frameworks.

Winnie Kamau, Association of Freelance Journalists

• Localised and context-driven capacity building: Recommended that capacity building needs to be localised, context-driven, and incorporate local languages and cultural values.
• Inclusion of overlooked groups: Urged for explicit inclusion of media, civil society, youth, women, and indigenous groups who are critical in building resilient digital ecosystems.
• Three recommendations: Called for long-term sustainable investment, prioritising governance capacity (data governance, AI ethics), and empowering independent media and grassroots innovators with resources.

Tinuade Oguntuyi, Information Connectivity Solutions Limited

• Rethinking capacity building: Argued that capacity building should be rethought beyond technical assistance and donor-recipient relationships, seeing Africans as co-creators, not just consumers.
• Framing digital literacy: Critiqued that digital literacy is framed in the elements paper from a reliability lens, rather than from the uniqueness of the global south bringing itself into leadership.
• Grounding in creativity and ethics: Recommended that capacity building should be grounded in creativity, ethics, and community resilience, not just technical know-how, and should also target political norms.

Rashi Gupta, Center for Development of Advanced Computing (India)

• Lack of specificity in targets: Noted with concern that the articulation of post-2015 targets has lacked specificity and urged the zero draft to include a consolidated mapping of these targets.
• Inadequacy of data mechanisms: Identified a persistent challenge in the inadequacy of robust, harmonised mechanisms for data collection, reporting, and progress assessment for WSIS.
• Domain-specific indicators: Emphasised the importance of creating a transparent, participatory global framework that includes domain-specific quantifiable indicators for areas like AI readiness and digital inclusion.

Israel Rosas, Internet Society

• WSIS framework’s adaptability: Argued that the WSIS framework and action lines have proven remarkably adaptable and remain the foundation for ongoing development, accommodating vast technological change.
• Multistakeholder model at heart: Stated that at the heart of WSIS achievements lies the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance, which is vital for the zero draft to ensure an ongoing commitment to.
• No need for new action lines: Asserted there is no need to reinvent the wheel or create new action lines; new challenges should be addressed by strengthening the implementation of existing WSIS action lines.

Dana Cramer, Young Digital Leaders of Canada

• Measuring youth engagement: Proposed that youth participation and engagement should become a metric tracked along each WSIS action line to create an incentive for agencies to include youth meaningfully.
• Defining ‘youth’: Advocated for separating ‘young people’ into ‘children’ (under 18) and ‘youth’ (18-35) in the zero draft to parallel other UN language and avoid liability issues.
• Incentivising meaningful inclusion: Argued that tracking youth engagement would help design digital initiatives that safeguard infrastructure for future generations.

Sebastien Bachollet, Internet Society France

• Multistakeholder, not multilateral: Expressed the firm belief that internet governance should be multistakeholder, not multilateral, to ensure the inclusion of non-governmental stakeholders.
• Significant strengthening of IGF: Argued that the IGF needs significant strengthening, international recognition, and solid funding, and its purpose should not be put in competition with other bodies.
• Multilingual participation: Noted it was strange that a UN consultation was held only in English and advocated for future discussions to be open to various languages.

Elizabeth Bacon, Public Interest Registry / Technical Community Coalition for Multistakeholderism

• Measuring IGF participation and impact: Recommended diligent measurement of participation, funding, outcomes, and impact of the IGF and its components (NRIs, dynamic coalitions) to enable data-driven analysis and efficiency.
• Strategic engagement between IGFs: Proposed a more strategic approach to engagement between the yearly IGFs to encourage continuous progress towards identified goals and maximise investment.
• IGF for digital governance: Stated that the IGF is key for discussing internet governance issues and identifying emerging themes, and its organisational aspects should be reviewed for continuous work flow.

Avri Doria, Technicalities

• Resolve enhanced cooperation: Urged to resolve the ‘enhanced cooperation’ conundrum without disruption, noting that successful efforts to enhance cooperation between multilateral and multistakeholder processes already exist and need nurturing.
• Concrete capacity building: Stressed the global necessity for capacity building and the need to do something concrete about it, noting the IGF is adept at this through its policy networks and dynamic coalitions.
• Use of internet for participation: Recommended continued move towards greater use of internet-based communication and hybrid models for consultations to become more inclusive and accommodate everyone.

Swati Lall, International Internet Exchange of India

• More frequent reviews: Argued that a 10-year review cycle is inadequate given the speed of technological change, proposing a multi-layer mechanism: annual progress tracking and a formal mid-term review (e.g., WSIS+25) aligned with the SDG review.
• Structured role for IGF and WSIS Forum: Recommended that the IGF and WSIS Forum play a more structured role in informing formal reviews, and that continuous multi-stakeholder dialogue must meaningfully inform the process.
• Evolving evaluation metrics: Stated that evaluating connectivity must now encompass skills, device affordability, bandwidth, and digital literacy, and include emerging priorities like responsible AI and green ICT.

Jenna Fung, NetMission.Asia

• Data justice for youth: Called for a rights-based, community-centred data governance with ethical protocols for youth data, which is used opaquely for AI training, deepening trust deficits.
• Meaningful defined connectivity: Argued that connectivity must be meaningfully defined beyond broadband access to include digital literacy, affordability, safety, and agency.
• Broader metrics suite: Advocated for a broader suite of metrics beyond connectivity rates, including access to digital skills, safe online spaces, youth representation in policy, and measures of empowerment.

Pari Esfandiai, Global Technopolitics Forum

• AI as strategic infrastructure: Framed AI as a strategic infrastructure of global power, not just a technical development challenge, facing systemic asymmetries in who shapes the rules.
• Normative weaknesses: Critiqued the paper for invoking ethics but avoiding binding commitment to human rights-based governance and for avoiding naming surveillance as a systemic risk.
• Missing geopolitical context: Argued the paper fails to examine the geopolitical context, including the rise of a ‘global compute oligarchy’, regulatory fragmentation, and how AI may suppress cultural and linguistic pluralism.

Sarah Nicole, Project Liberty

• AI amplifies current structures: Argued that AI amplifies the current centralised structure of the web that streams user control over data, further strengthening a handful of dominant companies.
• Embedding data agency: Proposed that data agency (citizen control over personal data) must be embedded at the core of digital infrastructure to ensure true empowerment.
• Mandating open protocols: Called for mandating the use of open-source, interoperable, and decentralised protocols to foster trust and resilience in the digital infrastructure that contributes to AI.

---

Main themes

1. Digital divide and inclusion: This was the most prominent theme, evolving from a focus on basic connectivity to a multidimensional ‘usage gap’. Key points included addressing barriers of affordability, skills, relevant local content, linguistic diversity, and access to devices and advanced technologies. Speakers like Roddy McGlynn (GSMA), Soumya Nair (India), and Baratang Miya provided critical data and perspectives.
2. Internet governance and the multi-stakeholder model: There was strong consensus on the importance of the multi-stakeholder approach, with extensive discussion on strengthening the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Key proposals were giving it a permanent mandate, sustainable funding, and a more impactful role. Fiona Alexander, Daphné Barbotte (EU), and Israel Rosas (ISOC) were key contributors.
3. Human rights and ethics: A major theme was the call to anchor the WSIS+20 outcome firmly in international human rights law, apply rights offline to online, and ensure corporate accountability. Elonnai Hickok (GNI), Ellie McDonald (Global Digital Rights Coalition), and Ana María Suárez Franco (FIAN) drove this discussion.
4. Environmental sustainability: The environmental cost of digitalisation, from AI’s energy use to e-waste, was highlighted as a critical and often overlooked issue. Speakers called for ‘green-by-design’ principles and a circular economy. Shradhanjali Sarma, María Soledad Vogliano (ETC Group), and Jasmine Ko (Hong Kong Youth IGF) were central to this theme.
5. Artificial intelligence (AI) governance: Discussions focused on the opportunities and risks of AI, the concentration of power in a few corporations and countries, and the need for governance that prevents harm and promotes equity. Paloma Lara Castro (Derechos Digitales), Gabriel Delsol (CCIA), and Pari Esfandiai offered diverse perspectives.
6. Digital public infrastructure (DPI) and innovation: DPI was presented as a transformative, equitable model for digital transformation, particularly in the global south. Aditya Vikram Dube (India) and Shumaila Hussain were key proponents.
7. Capacity building and skills: Moving beyond basic digital literacy to advanced skills for the future economy, particularly for youth, women, and marginalised communities, was a recurring need. Kayode Oyeyemi (AFICTA), Dheeraj Rajput (India), and Bea Guevarra (NetMission) emphasised this.
8. Financing and economic models: Concerns were raised about market-led approaches failing to bridge divides. Proposals included a digital development tax, reforming tax regimes, and innovative financing mechanisms. Sadhana Sanjay (IT for Change) and Anriette Esterhuysen (APC) contributed significantly.
9. Gender equality and youth engagement: The need to mainstream gender and youth across all action lines was emphasised, with specific calls for a standalone gender action line and metrics for youth participation. Mrinalini Dayal and Dana Cramer were vocal on this theme.
10. Follow-up, review, and implementation: Speakers critiqued the lack of robust monitoring mechanisms for WSIS and proposed more frequent reviews, better indicators, and stronger links between implementation fora like the IGF and WSIS Forum. Swati Lall and Rashi Gupta (India) provided detailed recommendations.

---

Analysis of (dis)agreements

Agreements

• Strengthening the multi-stakeholder model: There was broad consensus that the multi-stakeholder model is essential and must be reinforced. Speakers in agreement: Fiona Alexander, Timea Suto (ICC), Lucien Castex (AFNIC), Israel Rosas (ISOC), Claire Sophie Patzig (Youth IGF), and many others.
• Institutionalising the IGF: A large majority of speakers supported renewing the IGF’s mandate, making it permanent, and providing it with sustainable funding and a strengthened secretariat. Speakers in agreement: Jose Scandiucci (Brazil), Paul Blaker (UK), Fiona Alexander, Daphné Barbotte (EU), Anriette Esterhuysen (APC), and numerous civil society and technical community representatives.
• Addressing the multidimensional digital divide: There was unanimous agreement that the digital divide is now about more than connectivity and includes affordability, skills, content, and access to technology. Speakers in agreement: Roddy McGlynn (GSMA), Soumya Nair (India), James Kunle Olorundare (ISOC Nigeria), and virtually all speakers from the global south.
• Anchoring the outcome in human rights: Most speakers agreed that the WSIS+20 outcome must be grounded in international human rights law and reaffirm that rights offline apply online. Speakers in agreement: Elonnai Hickok (GNI), Ellie McDonald (Global Digital Rights Coalition), Laura O’Brien (Access Now), and a wide range of civil society organisations.
• Integrating the GDC with WSIS: There was strong support for creating a joint implementation roadmap to harmonise GDC commitments within the WSIS framework to avoid duplication. Speakers in agreement: Jose Scandiucci (Brazil), Christian Schlaepfer (Switzerland), and Laura Becana Ball (GFMD).

---

Disagreements

• Interpretation of ‘Enhanced Cooperation’: Views differed significantly on this term from the Tunis Agenda. Some warned against reopening contentious debates and saw it as a potential obstacle, while others from the global south maintained it remains relevant for ensuring equitable participation of governments.
  • Side A (Cautious): Paul Blaker (UK) and Fiona Alexander urged avoiding the phrase to prevent deadlock, arguing it has led to fruitless discussions. William Drake highlighted the deep geopolitical differences embedded in the term.
  • Side B (Supportive): Anriette Esterhuysen (APC) stated that effective equitable participation of governments (enhanced cooperation) remains relevant for the global south.
• Balance between market-led and public intervention: There were divergent views on the role of the private sector and the need for public intervention.
  • Side A (Market-led): Cheryl Miller (USCIB) and Timea Suto (ICC) emphasised creating policy environments that support private investment, innovation, and cross-border data flows.
  • Side B (Public intervention): Shumaila Hussain, Sadhana Sanjay (IT for Change), and Ana María Suárez Franco (FIAN) criticised market-led approaches, called for corporate accountability, and proposed public financing mechanisms like taxes on digital monopolies.
• Approach to ICT security: A clear disagreement emerged on the appropriate forum and terminology for discussing security issues.
  • Side A (Specialised formats): Roman Zimin (Russia) argued that ICT security should be discussed in specialised UN formats like the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) and preferred terms like ‘ICT security’ over ‘cyber’.
  • Side B (Broader inclusion): The prevailing view among other speakers was for a broader multi-stakeholder discussion on security within the WSIS and IGF contexts, without specifying terminology.

---

Follow-up actions

• Develop a joint WSIS-GDC implementation roadmap: Proposed by Jose Scandiucci (Brazil).
• Establish a global fund financed by corporate levies on digital monopolies: Proposed by Shumaila Hussain.
• Create a global task force on financing for inclusive digital transformation: Proposed by Sadhana Sanjay (IT for Change).
• Institute a dedicated WSIS action line on gender: Proposed by Mrinalini Dayal.
• Conduct a formal mid-term review (WSIS+25) in 2030: Proposed by Swati Lall.
• Mandate mandatory gender impact assessments for all AI systems: Proposed by Paloma Lara Castro (Derechos Digitales).

---

Statistics and data

• 2.6 billion people still unconnected from the internet today. (Cheryl Miller, USCIB)
• A single AI query can use up to 10 times more electricity than a standard web search. (Shradhanjali Sarma, Cyber Cafe Association of India)
• 3.7 billion people remain offline, with women disproportionately affected. (Baratang Miya)
• By 2030, 90% of jobs will require digital skills, yet 60% of African youth lack basic digital competencies. (Baratang Miya)
• Women-led startups receive less than 2% of global venture capital funding. (Baratang Miya)
• Broadband networks reach 96% of the global population, but only 57% use mobile internet. The usage gap is nine times the size of the coverage gap. (Roddy McGlynn, GSMA)
• Women across low and middle-income countries are 14% less likely to use mobile internet than men, resulting in 235 million fewer women online. (Roddy McGlynn, GSMA)
• 230 million jobs in sub-Saharan Africa will require digital skills by 2030. (Kayode Oyeyemi, AFICTA)
• 40% of Africa’s 100 million MSMEs have little or no digital integration. (Kayode Oyeyemi, AFICTA)
• 37% internet penetration in sub-Saharan Africa vs. 90% in North America. (James Kunle Olorundare, ISOC Nigeria)

---

Language analysis

Linguistic devices

• Appeal to emotion: “Think of the children if we don’t act now!” – Jutta Croll, invoking vulnerability in digital rights.
• Metaphor: “Digital divide as a growing chasm” – Koudy Wanee, portraying exclusion as a deepening threat.
• Anaphora: “We must… We must… We must…” – Cheryl Miller, repeating for emphasis on connectivity and cooperation.
• Rhetorical question: “Are we building the capacities in the right manner?” – Judith Hellerstein, questioning inclusion approaches.

Tech dichotomies

Tech and policy speeches are often framed in a dichotomous structure. The most typical one, which is used in almost any tech speech, is the ‘opportunity vs. risk’ dichotomy. These linguistic and cognitive tools are critical for internet/digital governance and diplomacy as they can easily lead to ‘false dichotomies’ of binary or either/or framing of problems. Identifying dichotomies is critical for fostering actionable trade-offs and practical solutions. Here you can find AI-generated analysis based on Kurbalija’s methodology of typical tech dichotomies.

Dichotomy name	Definition & tension	Supporting quote from text
Global vs Local	Tension between standardised, top-down technological solutions and community-driven models tailored to specific cultural, linguistic, and contextual needs.	“Centralized one-size-fits-all solutions often miss the mark… we advocate for hyper-local decentralized models.” (Arpita Kanjilal)
Access vs Meaningful Use	Tension between providing basic network coverage and ensuring people can actually use the internet affordably, safely, skillfully, and with relevant content.	“broadband networks now reach 96% of the global population, but only 57% use mobile internet.” (Roddy McGlynn)
Empowerment vs Control	Tension between technology that enhances individual agency and democratic participation versus technology used for surveillance, social control, and entrenching power imbalances (digital colonialism).	“The current market-led paradigm entrenched digital colonialism with extractive data flows and infrastructure dependency.” (Shumaila Hussain)
Universal Benefits vs Asymmetric Harms	Tension between the promise that tech advancement benefits everyone and the reality that its negative environmental and social impacts are disproportionately borne by the Global South.	“The environmental burdens are much more on the developing countries. This not only creates a sustainability gap, but also an equity gap.” (Shradhanjali Sarma)
Innovation vs Regulation	Tension between the rapid pace of technological innovation and the need for governance, accountability, and safeguards to prevent harm.	“Policies and regulations still allow internet fragmentation and increase the risk of fragmentation.” (Cheryl Miller)
Human-Centred vs Tech-Centred	Tension between designing technology for human values, inclusion, and well-being versus designing for pure efficiency, automation, and profit.	“we must shift from tech only policies towards an approach where technology serves people rather than exasperating this exclusion.” (Arpita Kanjilal)

Summary: The transcript reveals a discourse dominated by critical tensions inherent in digital development. The most prominent dichotomies centre on equity and power: who benefits from technology versus who bears its costs (Universal Benefits vs Asymmetric Harms), who controls its development and governance (Empowerment vs Control), and whether solutions are imposed globally or emerge locally (Global vs Local). The overall perspective leans towards a critique of the current digital paradigm, arguing that it often fails to deliver on its promises of universal benefit and instead risks reinforcing historical inequalities and creating new forms of exclusion and environmental damage. The proposed solutions consistently advocate for a reorientation towards justice, equity, and multi-stakeholder inclusivity.

Word frequency

Word/Phrase	Frequency
digital	287
WSIS	185
internet	127
stakeholders	112
governance	109
multi-stakeholder	97
access	93
IGF	91
human rights	78
development	75
capacity building	68
inclusive	65
global	64
forum	59
review	58
process	57
cooperation	56
community	55
must	54
need	53
model	52
technologies	51
implementation	50
countries	49
framework	48
youth	47
support	46
ensure	45
action	44
people	43
line	42
draft	41
zero	40
environmental	39
stakeholders	38
including	37
local	36
economy	35
women	34
skills	33
infrastructure	32
data	31
AI	30
connectivity	29
gap	28
building	27
element	26
paper	25
climate	24
change	23
security	22
sustainable	21
use	20
public	19
private	18
sector	17
need	16
also	15
new	14
time	13
today	12
thank	11
very	10
much	9
opportunity	8
contribute	7
consultation	6
session	5
please	4
floor	3
online	2
hear	1

---

Summary report

Context
The WSIS+20 Informal Stakeholder Consultation was a virtual meeting held on 29 July 2025, from 14:00 to 17:00 UTC. It was co-facilitated by Ambassador Suela Janina of Albania and Ambassador Ekitela Lokaale of Kenya, with support from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). This session was a critical step in the preparatory process for the 20-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which will culminate in a high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly in December 2025. The consultation was designed to gather verbal feedback on the ‘elements paper’, a foundational document that will guide the drafting of the ‘zero draft’ outcome document. Unusually for a UN New York-based process, it featured a joint dialogue with both member states and all stakeholder groups (civil society, private sector, technical community, academia) participating on equal footing.

Why it matters
This consultation is significant because it represents a concerted effort to inject genuine multi-stakeholderism into an intergovernmentally-led review process. The WSIS+20 outcome will set the global agenda for digital cooperation for the next decade, influencing how we address challenges like AI, digital divides, and cybersecurity. The insights gathered here will directly shape the zero draft, making this a pivotal opportunity for non-government voices to influence high-level digital policy. The novelty lay in the format itself—a hybrid, open dialogue—which many participants praised as a model for how UN digital processes should operate.

What was discussed
The discussion was structured around the themes of the elements paper. Key arguments emerged across all sessions:

• Digital divides: Speakers universally agreed the focus must shift from basic connectivity to ‘meaningful connectivity’. Roddy McGlynn (GSMA) provided crucial data illustrating the ‘usage gap’: 96% of people are covered by networks, but only 57% are online, meaning 3 billion people cannot afford or lack the skills to use the internet.
• Internet governance: There was overwhelming consensus on strengthening the multi-stakeholder model and making the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) a permanent UN institution with sustainable funding. Fiona Alexander (American University) noted, however, that only 15% of speakers were governments, questioning if the UN system can truly embrace shared decision-making.
• Human rights: Civil society organisations, including Ellie McDonald (Global Digital Rights Coalition), insisted the outcome must be firmly anchored in international human rights law and include a formal role for the UN human rights office (OHCHR).
• Environmental sustainability: The ecological cost of digitalisation was a major theme. Shradhanjali Sarma (CCAOI) highlighted that an AI query can use 10x more energy than a web search, with burdens falling disproportionately on the global south.
• Power asymmetries: Many speakers from the global south, like Shumaila Hussain (Tech Global Institute), critiqued ‘digital colonialism’ and called for structural changes, such as a digital development tax on tech giants, to rebalance the digital economy.

Unique and non-expected insights
Several insights challenged conventional narratives. Arpita Kanjilal (Digital Empowerment Foundation) argued compellingly for ‘hyperlocal’ digital models that are not fully automated but retain a ‘human anchor’ to build community trust. Tinuade Oguntuyi (Information Connectivity Solutions) reframed capacity building, stating, “Capacity is not a gap to be filled, but a force to be unleashed,” advocating for Africans to be seen as co-creators, not consumers. Perhaps the most unexpected tension was around the term ‘enhanced cooperation’. William Drake (Columbia University) warned it is a ‘lightning rod for geopolitical differences’ that could derail the entire process if not clearly defined, revealing the underlying political fractures that still exist.

Follow-up and next steps
The co-facilitators will now analyse this input, along with over 114 written submissions, to produce the ‘zero draft’ of the outcome document, expected in approximately one month. Subsequent negotiations among member states will take place, with stakeholders advocating for the inclusive spirit of this consultation to continue. Key proposed next steps embedded in the discussion include creating a joint implementation roadmap for the WSIS and Global Digital Compact, establishing a task force on digital financing, and planning a WSIS+25 review in 2030. Participants were urged to remain engaged through the formal negotiations and the WSIS and IGF forums.

---

Full transcript

Verbatim transcript

Session: Follow-up WSIS+20 Informal Stakeholder Consultation Session

Date: 29 Jul 2025 | Time: 14:00h – 17:00h

Suela Janina

But good morning, good afternoon, everyone. So although I’m connecting with another name, but it’s a pleasure to see a few here today. And I suggest that we can start the meeting. So good morning and good evening, distinguished colleagues, stakeholders, ladies and gentlemen. Ambassador Ekitela Lokaale and I are very pleased to welcome you to this informal virtual consultation in the WSIS plus 20 review process, which brings together member states and stakeholder communities in a shared dialogue.

The consultation is a follow-up to the written inputs that we have received by the end of the deadline that we put for the elements paper. Today’s session also builds on our earlier consultations held throughout May, June, and July in New York, in Paris, at UNESCO, at the IGF in Norway, and in Geneva at the WSIS Forum. We are grateful for the many written submissions received since then and for your continued engagement.

These consultations is structures to follow the main thematic areas outlined in the elements papers, where feedback was requested from US stakeholders. It offers an opportunity to reflect verbally on the written inputs we have received on the scope of the WSIS framework, its alignment with emerging priorities and the coherence of implementation mechanisms. We hope today’s discussion will provide valuable perspectives to guide the zero draft preparations, which will take place over the coming weeks.

We thank all participants for your willingness to engage in the constructive and forward-looking exchange, and all present member states and non-government stakeholders for their openness to hearing diverse views. I now would like to invite my co-facilitator, Ambassador Lokaale, to say a few words before we open the floor for the discussions. Ambassador, the floor is to you. I think that we’re ready. Okay, we’re hearing.

So Ambassador Lokale, I just presented a few opening remarks and I would like to invite you now to address the virtual audience with a few welcoming remarks from your side. The floor is yours, Ambassador. All right, thank you,

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you, Ambassador. Let me join you in welcoming all the participants and thanking you for your contributions throughout this process.

Today’s consultation provides an opportunity to continue the dialogue in a joint setting with both member states and stakeholders present. As noted, the consultation is organized thematically following the structure of the elements paper. Though we invite interventions on one of those areas per speaker, we acknowledge topics and issues are cross-cutting and interventions need not be overly restricted by theme. As in previous sessions, we ask that remarks be concise.

These contributions will directly inform the drafting of the WSIS plus 20 zero draft. We look forward to a focused and constructive discussion. Before we start, the Secretariat will share a few housekeeping rules. Deniz, thank you. Thank you.

Deniz Susar
Thank you so much, Ambassador. Thank you so much, Ambassador. Yes, we have today from 10 to 13 Eastern Time speaking list. We will go through the sections in the elements paper.

In the ICT for development, I see we have eight speakers, so we will start with those. However, we understand that you may not only target that section of the elements paper, so if your intervention is going through other sections, that is perfectly fine. The meeting is also being recorded and it will be available on the website later today or tomorrow, so you can watch the full video. recording, we understand it’s going to be a long meeting.

Secretariat will also prepare a summary of the meeting and publish it online. With this, Ambassador Suela, if I can turn back to you, if you want to go through the speaking list, or if you want us to indicate you, and we can go however you prefer.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Deniz. Indeed, we have a speaking list which we would like to open now because I think we have had a few moments lost in our communication.

So I would like now to open the speaking list and to invite everyone, please, to keep short to the three minutes time that has been allocated in order that we have possibility to hear from everyone that would like to take the floor. So the first topic for discussion that we’ve put in this informal consultation is ICT for development. And the first speaker in our list is Ms. Arpita Kanjilal from Digital Empowerment Foundation. Arpita, you have the floor.

Arpita Kanjilal

Hi. Hi. Good evening from India. I’m Arpita from the Digital Empowerment Foundation. We work to bridge the digital divide by empowering marginalized communities through technology. So as we reflect on the BUSYS 20 review, we recognize the tremendous potential of ICTs in development, but also acknowledge the critical need for more hyperlocal and decentralized models of digital development that directly address the unique needs of local communities.

These models, we believe from our learning from India, is essential. We believe are essential for achieving sustainable. inclusive digital development, particularly in regions where top-down centralized approaches may not be as effective. So WSIS has had long recognized the importance of ICT in advancing societal development, yet in many parts of the world, the digital solutions that work at the national or global level do not necessarily fit the local context.

So like what I’m trying to say is that centralized one-size-fits-all solutions often miss the mark, especially in regions with diverse languages, cultures, and local needs, like we have in India. A lack of localist content and infrastructure continues to exclude vast segments of the population in India, for example. So at Digital Empowerment Foundation, we advocate for hyper-local decentralized models, and these models are community-driven and specifically tailored to the realities on the ground.

And we have majorly learned that bottom-up models, like frugal technologies, localized need-based solutions, and digital systems are a key to success. These systems embed technology with a human anchor, ensuring that digital tools remain accessible, relevant, and rooted in the community’s needs. Importantly, these models are not fully automated because they involve a human touch, which strengthens trust and reliability among communities.

So yeah, so many digital development initiatives still fail to engage with the grassroots level, we see, where solutions need to be tailored to address those unique local issues. So the barriers to this are often lack of local infrastructure, low digital literacy, and unavailability of content in local languages. So then we must also address information dependency, ensuring that the information people access is reliable and trusted.

Like technology policies increasingly are becoming tech-only policies that are driving deeper exclusion, particularly among marginalized communities. And this trend creates an even wider digital divide pushing vulnerable populations further away from the opportunities that ICT can offer. For digital transformation to be truly meaningfully inclusive we must focus on hyper local models is what I am trying to say again and again which centers communities and is tailored to the local context.

So here when I say the digital model is basically where technology is integrated with human engagement where which allows basically a real-world connection with tech. So these non fully automated systems ensure that human presence continues to play a key role. So in yeah so importantly we must shift from tech only policies towards an approach where technology serves people rather than exasperating this exclusion. So Digital Empowerment Foundation has a model called the Suchana Praneur model.

Suchana as in information and Praneur is entrepreneurs so information entrepreneurs who are basically local community leaders enabling access to information and access to e-governance in their own local context.

So as we move forward with the WSIS 20 review we must I think reaffirm the importance of hyper local decentralized models and when we imagine a model which centers on them leading their own digital development I think we can truly ensure that no one is left behind in this digital transformation journey and thank you so much for this opportunity to share our vision for a more inclusive locally relevant future.

Suela Janina
Thank you Arpita and I would really plead to the following speakers please stick to your three minutes in order we’ll have time for everyone to give their opinions and their views about the discussion we’re having today. So without further ado I would like to invite Socheata Sokhachan from Net Mission Asia to take the floor. Socheata the floor is yours. Thank you.

Socheata Sokhachan
My name is Socheata and I’m from Cambodia.

As a country that has experienced more recently tensions and conflict with our neighboring countries that have brought sacrifice and hardship. So we know firsthand how fragile peace can be and how essential it is for the progress. So for us, peace is not just the option of conflict, it is the foundations for development, for hope and building a digital future where no one left behind.

So it is with the spirit that I speak today, representing young digital leader from across the Asia-Pacific economy, who gather virtually this early July for the APAC Youth Versus Plus 20 series that organized by netmission.asia. So we welcome the element paper that recognized the ICT as central for achieving the 2030 agenda and to building inclusive resilience society. And however, based on our original youth consultation, we emphasize that digital development must go beyond access to be truly transformational.

So despite this advancement in a broadband and mobile coverage, some youth in rural and low-income communities still face significant barriers from affordability and how digital literacy can be lack of localized relevant content. And this reality were echoed by our Asian youth and remote Pacific Island states where national coverage statistic often obscure real gifts in the usability, service quality and inclusion.

So we call for a reg-based and user-centered approach to the ICT development that include the broadening the definitions of connectivity to include the speed, latency, especially the affordability and fair competitions, not just infrastructure rollout. Second point, investing in capacity building for underserved area with the support for youth-led digital literacy program and public-private partnership that prioritize skills, not just access to device. Lastly, enabling youth-driven innovations from local language AI tool to healthcare, agriculture. and to the community.

So as one of our contributor from Pakistan said, ICT must empower youth to solve the local problem, not just consume the global content. So we urge the WASI plus 20 stakeholder to embed youth as a co-creator, not just the beneficiaries of ICT strategies and to provide support to grassroots initiatives that enroll and marginalize youth in development effort.

So let’s ensure that ICT don’t just connect, but uplift, empower and enable every young person to thrive in the digital age. That’s it from my intuition.

Suela Janina
Thank you. Thank you Socheata for your contribution. I would like now to invite Vashkar Bacha-Njari from Young Power in Social Action to take the floor. Vashkar, the floor is yours. Do we have Vashkar online?
Deniz Susar
Ambassador Vashkar is not here. Maybe we can move to the next speaker.

Suela Janina
Yeah, we can move. And I’d like to invite Mr. Roberto Bissio from Social Watch. Roberto, are you online? If not, I would like to call Wisdom Donkor from Ghana IGF, Ghana Domain Name Registry. Wisdom, are you online? Okay, then I’ll try to ask the next speaker on the list. Jin Tanaka from University Student Chamber International. Jin, are you online? Yes, I am. Please Jin, the floor is yours.

Jin Tanaka

All right, thanks so much.

Okay. Okay, thanks so much. So, yes. for our university students also like to take initiative for the genetic AIs and also the mixing to the some of the topics with latent onto the some the mutual understanding dialogue with some collaboration and workings and that time we also have some of the pros and cons as a facing so that’s what I came here to share about it.

As a pros we have introduced to the some of the these kinds of method with introducing onto the some genetic AI based onto the making to the chat GPT or open open resource and that’s a that’s a so highly effective because that these kinds of systems I mean the education assistant tools can assist for each of the student and also the personalizing to them each of the learning speed as well but whereas still they have we have some of the howlations.

It’s kind of the not not correct information can be shared so so it’s going to be the increasing some of the burdens for the teachers they are not for teachings they we can solve to the we can solve make the teachers or less burdens for the teaching itself but checking checking to the to the some some AI generated by the generated by the AI for some information or some education tools or education informations should we should we check so it can be that going to be that this kind of point going to be the increase in some burdens for the teachers so what I want to say is as a to introduce for the AI tools it’s also going to be great opportunity and also the open to the any other students who like to know more more and more and also the based onto the to the know about how can we improve based on the AI so that’s why I came I also did it just two weeks ago I just released onto the the subsistence for the the global ethics and also the introducing to the some another AI I mean so some some three AIs I use I use it and first AI that generates the ideas and second AI going to be considered about the which is the foreign to the some official guidelines based on the each each schools or each countries education policies and third one is a just try to correct or with judge for the whether this information is correct or not and we also introduce that kinds of systems but still we have the under development of this kind of systems and our our system going to be introduced and expand in year until to 2030s for for the transforming educations for making less teachers uh making less bad and teachers and also for this financial difficulties for any other students who like to learn about any other topic, even some of the science or technology or history or anything as they want.

So that’s my perspective and that’s my kind of progress that I want to share as here. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you. Thank you very much, Jin, for your contribution. I would like now to invite Joel from University of JOS, Nigeria. Joel, are you online? Joel, we don’t hear you.

So I would like to invite the next speaker and if any of the persons that I’ve called the name join later, they can just write a message to the chat and we’ll try to accommodate their request to speak. The next speaker in the list is Matiullah Safi from Afghanistan. Matiullah , are you online? I don’t hear Matiullah . So these were the names that we have on the list under this chapter ICT for development.

Now the next chapter of our discussion is the digital economy and we’d like to invite José Sanducci, Permanent Mission of Brazil to the United Nations. José, are you online? I don’t have the keys.

Deniz Susar
He’s not here, Ambassador, we can move to number 10 again.

Suela Janina
OK, then I see Cheryl Miller, United States Council for International Business. She’s online. Cheryl, the floor is yours.

Cheryl Miller

Thank you so much, Ambassadors.

The United States Council for International Business, USCIB, appreciates the opportunity to submit comments to the WSIS Plus 20 Draft Elements paper. USCIB is the US affiliate to the International Chamber of Commerce, and we connect business with the work of international organizations and represent the voice of business in multilateral discussions.

The private sector recognizes that the digital economy remains challenged by the continued digital divide, the increase in fragmentation, and the inconsistent adoption of the multi-stakeholder model for digital governance. Financial barriers, technological barriers, and regulatory barriers expand the digital divide, leaving a stark 2.6 billion people still unconnected from the internet today. This imbalance sharpens as advanced technology such as AI further the gap by requiring new skills not only to access technology, but to meaningfully use it.

Policies and regulations still allow internet fragmentation and increase the risk of fragmentation. The private sector has worked hard to collaborate with the multi-stakeholder community to facilitate cross-border data flows and support the development of global digital standards that drive innovation. The gains we have achieved must be protected and furthered, and ongoing barriers to trade and innovation threaten to reverse the progress that has been made.

The Internet Governance Forum remains an important example of how the multi-stakeholder approach to addressing key policy challenges can successfully balance the growth of advanced technologies. However, the multi-stakeholder model is still inconsistently applied across countries, and in some cases, it’s not meaningfully applied at all.

To create a robust digital economy, the multi-stakeholder community must create policy environments that support innovation and investment, and to fully harness the power of ICTs in the digital economy, we need policy frameworks that are fit for purpose and consider the entire digital services and communications ecosystem. We must expand meaningful connectivity. Without urgent action, the existing gaps in connectivity will widen.

Access to reliable infrastructure and services must be paired with investments in digital literacy, locally relevant content, and capacity building. We must strengthen multi-stakeholder cooperation. The growth of advanced cooperation is more important than ever. We must work together to ensure that AI governance is based on interoperable, inclusive, and rights-based approaches. The multi-stakeholder community must work to avoid fragmented regulatory regimes that hamper innovation, reduce trust, and increase compliance burdens.

We thank you for the opportunity to speak today and look forward to being a partner in helping to achieve these goals. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you. Thank you, Cheryl, for your contribution. I would like now to let me try to connect with Jose from the Commission of Brazil. Jose, do you hear me? Are you online? Yes.

Jose Scandiucci
Can you hear me?

Suela Janina
Yes, please. You have the floor. Oh, no. Now it’s good.

Jose Scandiucci
Sorry, I mean, there were some technical issues before. Well, thank you very much, Ambassador, for this opportunity for Brazil, as a member of states, to share some views with other stakeholders and other colleagues. We’d like just to stress some key outcomes we hope to achieve in this decennial review of the WSIS process.

The final WSIS plus 20 documents needed to envision how to build upon the existing framework of international cooperation in the digital realm, in order to align it with the current demands to bridge current and emerging digital divides. We need to take stock of what has worked, what has not, and how to meaningfully include developing countries in the digital transformation.

This entails highlighting, among other issues, the promotion of digital public infrastructures, universal and meaningful connectivity, environmental sustainability, and information integrity. And in order to avoid the duplication efforts, the implementation of the Global Digital Compact, the GDC, should be integrated within the WSIS process with the implementation of the GDC. A joint WSIS-GDC roadmap would ensure budgetary efficiency and optimize the use of resources.

We’d also like to reinforce the role of the ODET, the Office for Digital Emerging Economies. And finally, Ambassador, I’d like to say that we advocate for the strengthening of the Internet Governance Forum, the IGF. Its mandate should be permanent, with a stable and practical budget, and the scope should evolve in line with the rapid development of digital technology. In fact, maybe there should be a change in the terminology. It should be maybe digital governance Forum instead of Internet Governance Forum due to this evolution. So thank you very much again. Brazil will continue to work constructively with all stakeholders towards a final WSIS Plus 20 document that promotes global digital transformation that benefits all. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you very much, Jose. Now I would like to invite Aditya Vikram Dube from Center for Development of Advanced Computing. Aditya, are you online? Yes, I am online. Please, you have the floor.

Aditya Vikram Dube
Good afternoon, good morning and good evening to the co-facilitators, the secretariat, and also to the fellow delegates and other participants. And we thank you for organizing this session at a timely juncture. And I am Aditya Vikram Dube. I serve as a policy analyst with the Center for Development of Advanced Computing and R&D organizations in the field of ICT, Governance and Electronics under the Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India.

First of all, we know that two decades have passed since the WSIS process began. The landscape of digital landscape has evolved profoundly. And it’s great that the Element paper recognizes this by incorporating themes that were absent from the earlier outcomes, most notably the digital economy that we are discussing right now, AI, as well as environment sustainability, etc.

This broadening of scope is both necessary and timely as these domains have increasingly defined the contours of global information society. Equally welcoming is the paper’s focus on digital inclusion, affordable access, digital scaling, and MSME participation, areas that remain foundational to ensuring digital economy delivers equitably. However, with these benefits, we also need to identify that there are gaps that we need to address.

There are gaps in infrastructure affordability, digital literacy, institutional capacity risk, excluding large segments of population, particularly in the under-connected, low-resource setting global south environment. The Internet Residence Index also gives some indications on areas such as infrastructure, performance security, and market readiness, which are practical conditions that determine whether individuals are meaningfully engaged and connected online for their contribution to digital economy.

In this context, we’d also like to draw your attention to the transformative potential that DPI has as a globally relevant model for inclusive digital transformation. DPI architectures that are anchored in open-source technologies, open standards, and modular frameworks have demonstrated how innovation can be both scalable and equitable.

Flagship initiatives and solutions for diverse use cases such as digital identity for real-time payments and also for trusted digital documentation exemplify how a foundational layer of digital public goods can empower citizens and enable last-mile connectivity. These are not just digital solutions, but also social technical innovations that reflect a broader evolution.

By offering open APIs and modular design, these platforms have lowered entry barriers for startups and MSMEs, enabling them to build a top public infrastructure without duplicative investments in entity or payment system. Moreover, the nature of interoperability and device agnostic DPIs is also something which DPIs should follow globally, and so that even communities which are from low resource can participate meaningfully.

We would also like to, again, harp on the factor of affordability, in particular, that remains a critical concern. In many parts of the world, the cost of internet remains high, and that is a barrier to full participation. The elements report also addresses this, and we will be glad if it is addressed to an even further extent in the zero draft.

Finally, meaningful engagement also requires capacity building, and national campaigns for digital awareness must be paired with global digital skill training. Without such efforts, connectivity risks remain symbolic rather than transformative. So in conclusion, this is not only a moment of reflection. It’s an opportunity to reframe the digital economy as a universal enabler of sustainable development.

And as the process moves forward, continued cooperation, knowledge sharing, and commitment to an inclusive system will be essential to building a digital future that leaves no one behind. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Aditya, for your contribution. I would like to invite Shumaila Hussain from Tech Global Institute to take the floor. Shumaila, the floor is yours.

Shumaila Hussain
Thank you, Your Excellencies. My name is Shumaila Hussain, and I represent Tech Global Institute.

We co-submitted and fully endorsed the joint inputs by Global Digital Justice Forum and the Global Digital Rights Coalition for OASIS. The elements paper provides a useful starting point. But to build on it, we propose that zero draft incorporates specific provisions to, one, remedy structural imbalances, two, nurture small enterprises, and three, institutionalize fair access principles.

The current market-led paradigm entrenched digital colonialism with extractive data flows and infrastructure dependency, the Zero Draft must explicitly include language on asymmetric data flows and call for reforms to trade and tax regimes that enable value extraction from the global south, establish a global fund financed by corporate levies on digital monopolies to support digital public infrastructure in developing countries, recognize connectivity as a human right and anchor it in the draft’s principles aligned with the GDC’s commitment to universal access.

Equally urgent is addressing how big tech dominance stifles local innovation. The Zero Draft can break this strange hold by requiring interoperability in digital infrastructures to reduce SME dependency on big tech, allocating resources for community-led platforms and cooperatives, requiring data markets to enable fair competition and local value creation. With over one-third of the world’s population still offline due to cost barriers, language divides and power asymmetries, we need transformative solutions.

For this, the Zero Draft must ensure digital growth advances, gender responsive and climate just transitions, ensuring digital growth doesn’t come at the expense of marginalized communities or the environment, localized solutions including multilingual technologies and circular economy models to combat e-waste dumping. We hope for a global internet framework that re-centers the digital economy around justice and dismantles colonial legacies. We stand ready to collaborate on this transformative agenda with you. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you very much for your contribution. I would like now to invite Eqram Mustaqeem from Third World Network to take the floor. Eqram, are you online? If this is not the case, I would like to invite Baratang Miya, Girl Hype and Women Who Code to take the floor. Baratang, are you online?

Baratang Miya
Yes, thank you very much. Thank you very much. My name is… Thank you very much for the floor, Ambassador.

We know that the digital economy is transforming global markets, creating unprecedented opportunities for growth and innovation. However, significant disparities persist, particularly for women and youth who face systematic barriers to access, skills and economic participation. The WSIS must prioritize digital economic inclusion by ensuring equitable access to digital tools, skills and financial resources. We propose actionable solutions including gender responsive funding, including digital skills programs and policy reforms to ensure no one is left behind in the digital economy.

The digital divide limits economic participation. Despite the rapid expansion of digital services, 3.7 billion people remain offline, with women and youth in developing regions disproportionately affected. This is according to ITU in 2023. Without internet access and digital literacy, these groups cannot participate in e-commerce, remote work or digital financial services, perpetuating economic inequality. Lack of skills for future jobs. By 2030, 90% of jobs will require digital skills, yet 60% of African youth and 40% of women globally lack basic digital competencies.

Traditional education systems are failing to prepare marginalized groups for the digital workforce, leaving them at risk of unemployment and economic instability. The third one is financial barrier for digital entrepreneurship. Women-led startups receive less than 2% of global venture capital funding, limiting their ability to scale digital businesses. Additionally, many women and youth lack access to digital payment system, microloans, and e-commerce platforms, restricting their economic mobility.

Solution for an inclusive digital economy is for WSIS to try and expand and make sure that within the framework, there are policies that expand affordable and accessible digital infrastructure. Governments and private sector must partner to invest in the last mile connectivity. The digital economy should be a force for equality, not exclusion, by removing barriers and access. And at the same time, there should be dedicated resources and structural change, gender equality, as part of the framework.

The gender justice should be at the heart of WSIS process through clear commitment, measurable goals, and dedicated, measurable, accountable policies. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Miya, for your contribution. I’d like to invite Mohan Raidu from Internet Society, ESOC India, Peter Bed chapter. Mohan, are you on the line? We don’t hear you, so I suppose you’re not able to be connected. And now I’d like to go to the next chapter, which is social and cultural development.

And I would like to invite Joseph Lea Nkalwo from International Organization of La Francophonie. Joseph, you have the floor. Thank you. Joseph, are you on line? If this is not the case, then I would like to invite the next speaker, Mr. Giacomo Mazzone from IGF Policy Network for Meaningful Access. Giacomo, we cannot hear you. We see you, but we cannot hear you. Maybe the secretary can help us with the technical issue?

Deniz Susar
Giacomo needs to unmute himself

Suela Janina
Giacomo, accendi il microfono, per favore.

Giacomo Mazzone
Sorry for the technical glitch. I would like to intervene in Italian for the ambassador, but I will not because the others will not follow me. So I will do it in my bed English. I speak today in my role of co-chair of the policy network on meaningful access, one of the intersessional activities of the Internet Governance Forum.

I’ve been asked to intervene on social and cultural development aspects, so I will focus on that, while I also send a written contribution on behalf of the media that I invite you to consider.

The work of PNMA within the IGF and before of the best practice of content and languages has always focused on the best ways to promote form of access to the Internet that are, for instance, are made in the languages of the community target of the access with the focus, for instance, on indigenous communities and indigenous languages, focus on providing services that are useful and necessary to these communities and improve their lives like e-government, access to markets, access to education, health, etc.

With a special attention in view of the impact of the climate change on the life of community devoted to the access to services of emergency that could save lives like early warning systems and others.

Verify also the access that is provided in a safe and secure way to avoid that digitally literate could become victim of cyber attacks and verify that the condition of the access are, as Vint Cerf has said many times in our meetings, equitable and affordable, because if not affordable, this means that the people will not subscribe.

We can see through examples of what happened in many cases that sometimes the signal is available, but the people doesn’t subscribe because or cannot afford or because the services that are provided are not useful to them. This is the main question, but apart of that, I think that there are other important issues that need to be mentioned in the element paper that we are preparing.

First is that the process that we have we have experienced all over this 20 years has been very useful because there’s a lot. allowed people of different communities and different segments of the internet world and now the digital dimension to work together and to recognize the needs and the experience of the others. Through this dialogue constantly we have been able to improve the capacity to work together.

So we need to break down the barriers that are obliging us to work in silos and to work together in the future of the global digital compact implementation. Thank you very much.

Suela Janina
Thank you very much, Giacomo, for your contribution. Now I would like to invite Ms. Ana Maria Suarez-Franco from Food First Information and Action Network. Ana Maria, you have the floor.

Ana María Suárez Franco
Thank you very much, Ambassador.

PN is a member of the Global Digital Justice and we would like to state that the laissez-faire digital economy has seen fragrant human rights violations, including of social, economic and cultural rights, which are a condition for fair cultural and social development. Exhorting these corporations to respect the UN guiding principles on businesses and human rights, which are a voluntary standard resulting from multi-stakeholder negotiation, has unfortunately not met with any success.

The question of corporate accountability remains unsolved and especially corporate liability for the human rights and environmental violations by tech companies remain unsolved without effective enforcement tools for the affected human rights holders. This happens in a context in which big tech companies often hide behind the smokescreen of virtualized operations that go beyond borders, which deflects attention from real impacts of their pan-global activities, including on the right to development, human and environmental rights, all those intrinsically connected.

Unfortunately, human rights and humanitarian extraterritorial obligations, which have been recognized in a number of legal sources and jurisprudence in other fields, and more specifically the Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations, and also reaffirmed in the General Document 24 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of the UN, remain toothless for affected individuals and communities harmed by technological corporations.

This impunity does not only nullify and undermine the human rights of the present generations, but put at risk the enjoyment of the human rights of future generations.

Given the urgency to address the cross-border harms unleashed by the big tech companies and in the spirit of upholding Paragraph 22 of the GDC, where Member States have committed to upholding their duty to protect human rights throughout the technology life cycle, which today is cross-border, the Zero Draft must urge for a specific recognition of a State obligation to protect against human rights abuses by their digital businesses in global technology value chains, and to ensure effective implementation of the guidance of technology companies in respect of remedies.

The obligation to protect includes also States’ obligations to regulate, monitor compliance, investigate abuses, and, if the abuses take place, to punish the abusers. Regarding the information integrity to epistemic rights, we affirm that, despite progress on platform regulation and AI ethics, there is considerable ground to be covered in respect of designing the techno-architectures of a democratic digital sphere.

On 22 July, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay and Spain agreed to international collaboration to ensure transparency in algorithms and data management, with the Digital Environment Technical Cooperation for Democratic Digital Governance, and strengthen the UN Global Initiative. for information integrity on climate change from the start point of democratic accountability in the digital public sphere. The CIRO draft needs to direct UNESCO to further its work in the following areas. I will be quick.

Guarantees to the epistemic rights of citizens, including access to their factual and reliable information and knowledge in the competence critical literacy to use technologies in their own benefit. Disclosure of guidelines for AI models, including training data model architecture, human rights based regulatory frameworks to hold media platforms accountable for negatively affected democratic integrity, whether through legal, illegal, harmful and AI generated content. In our contribution to the elements paper, you will find more elements.

But finally, I would like to highlight that states must ensure intergenerational justice, providing and enabling regulatory environment through appropriate digital policies, including universal and meaningful access investment in local language content and content for local livelihoods. The Internet is not by itself an enabler of social and cultural rights, but it needs to be duly regulated.

We have seen how misuse or not access to the technologies can create violations of the right to non-discrimination and the right to self-discrimination. And members of the Global Digital Justice have documented cases regarding the right to health, also regarding the right to work.

Suela Janina
Maria, I apologize, but we need to conclude.

Ana María Suárez Franco:
It’s OK. Excuse me. Excuse me. I couldn’t see the chronology.

Suela Janina
Everything that you will present on writing will be very carefully reviewed. So please, if you have additional elements, send them in writing or just the ones that you have sent. They will be very carefully reviewed and everything will be taken into account in our. process by preparing the zero draft. So, thank you very much. I would like now to invite Sophia Longwe from Wikimedia to take the floor.

And please, Sophia, be very kind enough to stick to your three minutes. Thank you. The floor is yours.

Sophia Longwe
Thank you, Ambassador. Dear Excellencies, co-facilitators and fellow speakers. On behalf of Wikimedia Germany, I thank the co-facilitators for convening this consultation and for maintaining a transparent, inclusive process in the lead-up to the WSIS Plus 20 review. We also endorse the statement of the Global Digital Rights Coalition and the joint NII and CSO statement.

Over the last two decades, WSIS has established the foundation for an inclusive digital society. As His Excellency Dr. Kofi Annan established, knowledge is power and information is liberating. A central pillar of that legacy is the multi-stakeholder approach embodied in the Internet Governance Forum and its national, regional and youth initiatives. These spaces have been essential for dialogue and co-creation in digital governance. WSIS has also been instrumental in promoting access to information and knowledge.

The recognition of open educational resources and open licensing under Action Line C3 created spaces for equitable, multilingual, universal access and participatory knowledge sharing. For Wikimedia Germany, this is not just a technical issue, but a matter of justice, access and inclusivity. But major gaps remain. Digital divides are no longer just about infrastructure. They now encompass disparities in language, access and digital literacy and participation. The principle, public money, public good is far from being realized.

Many publicly funded digital tools and knowledge resources remain locked behind proprietary barriers. At the same time, we’re increasingly concerned about the erosion of the multi-stakeholder approach, especially in the section on social social and cultural development in the elements paper. Mainly governments in paragraph 21 and national strategies in paragraph 24 are emphasized. This is not just about governments. This is about all stakeholders and this is a global problem.

Actors, particularly marginalized communities or volunteers like Wikipedia editors still face systemic barriers to meaningful engagement all around the world. Forums and processes remain hard to navigate with opaque processes and limited accountability mechanisms. Thereby double structures persist that exclude. Looking ahead, WSIS plus 20 must be bold. We call for the improvement of action line C3 to an action line on access to information, knowledge and the digital commons.

Recognizing that open knowledge, open licensing and digital volunteer work like Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikicommons are not peripheral but at the center of the vision of WSIS. So we recommend embedding accountability, a clear timeline roadmap, securing funding for the IGF and volunteers and establishing stronger links between WSIS and the GDC and the SDGs. In a world facing increasing digital injustices and multiple prices, WSIS must reaffirm our shared commitment to openness, equity and the multi-stakeholder approach. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you very much, Sofia, for your contribution. I would like now to call Lisa Russell from artsandboy.ai. Lisa, are you online? If it’s not the case, I would like to recall Bazlur Rahman from Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication. Baslu, are you online? Then we conclude, if it’s not possible to connect with those that I called, we go to the next chapter, which is environmental impacts.

In my list, I have Alessandro Pinto from Permanent Mission of Brazil to the UN. But my understanding is that the Permanent Mission of Brazil took the floor and… and would not like to take the floor for the second time. If this is the case, then I would like to invite Wisdom Gyansah from Wiss Tech Engineering/ Marrita Construction Limited/ Joberg Ghana Limited Wisdom, are you online?

If this is not the case, then I would like to call for Shradhanjali Sarma from Cyber Cafe Association of India. Shradhanjali, are you online? Yes, I’m online. Please, the floor is yours.

Shradhanjali Sarma
Thank you so much for this opportunity and for organizing this stakeholder discussion.

My name is Shradhanjali, and on behalf of CCAOI, of Civil Society Organization, working in internet and digital policy in India, I’d like to provide my comments on the impact of AI on environment and sustainability. As we look forward towards the future of digital cooperation, it is very crucial to address a pressing but often overlooked issue, which is the carbon footprint of artificial intelligence. While AI promises innovation, it comes with a cost.

Generative AI models like GPT-4 rely on energy-intensive data centers. Each prompt consumes significantly more electricity than a standard web search. According to the International Energy Agency, a single AI query can use up to 10 times more electricity than a standard web search. Many data centers also rely on water-intensive cooling systems, placing additional stress on already scarce resources. And the growing environmental impact is not evenly distributed.

While the benefits of AI are global, the environmental burdens are much more on the developing countries. This not only creates a sustainability gap, but also an equity gap that we need to urgently address. As Business Plus 20 leads the way, it’s very important to place environment sustainability at the core of digital governance. And therefore, we suggest that there should be five measures that OASIS can provide.

First is the promotion of the energy-efficient servers and improved cooling systems in data centers, promotion of the use of efficient AI algorithms through pruning and knowledge distillation, promotion of prioritization of efficiency in the AI training phase, because the AI training phase consumes much more energy than the AI inference phase, then the mandate and promotion of responsible e-waste management for AI hardware, and call for a shift in AI infra towards renewable and much more low-carbon energy sources.

Additionally, Business Plus 20 should support the development of global sustainability standards covering energy usage, water consumption, carbon intensity, and circular product design. We also urge the adoption of the AI-enabled AI technology in the digital economy. And finally, the adoption of the AI-enabled AI technology in the digital economy. And finally, the adoption of the AI-enabled AI technology in the digital economy. adoption of a green AI-by-design approach?

Suela Janina
Yes, Shradhanjali, can you please continue because we lost you for a moment. You can continue. Yeah, you can hear me? Yes, now it’s okay, but it’s a little bit windy from your side. Maybe you can come closer to the microphone a little bit.

Shradhanjali Sarma
Yeah, can you hear me now? Is it better now?

Suela Janina
Yes, it’s okay, you can continue.

Shradhanjali Sarma
We also urge that there should be an adoption of green AI-by-design, which is just like privacy-by-design that we have in our data protection framework so that the environmental considerations that can be part of the AI model lead from the development stage to the deployment state. So finally, let us also reframe how we measure progress in AI, not just by speed or scale, but by energy saved, water preserved, and emissions reduced.

With this, I would like to conclude my comments today. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Shradhanjali, for your contribution. I would like now to invite Maria Soledad Vogliano from Action Group on Erosion Technology and Concentration to take the floor. Maria Soledad, are you online? María Soledad Vogliano: Yes, I am here. Can you hear me?

Suela Janina
Yes, we hear you. You can continue. The floor is yours.

María Soledad Vogliano
Thank you. Thank you, co-facilitators, excellencies, and colleagues. I speak on behalf of ETC Group and the Global Digital Justice Forum to address paragraph 27 of the text and offer concrete proposals to reduce the environmental footprint of the digital sector. We must challenge the dominant narrative that portrays digital technologies as dematerialized and inherently green. In reality, the infrastructure behind digitalization from semiconductor supply chains to data centers imposes severe material, environmental, and social costs.

The global South provides the minerals, energy, and land which has little control over the technologies or the value they generate. A just and sustainable digital transition demands more than energy efficiency or recycling. We offer six forward-looking priorities. One, ensure revised longevity and the right to repair. Governments must adopt binding standards that… and plant obsolescence enable repairability and promote hardware reuse and upgradability. Two, regulate the expansion of data centers.

Their location must be subject to environmental and social impact assessments with the free, prior and informed consent of local communities. Water, biodiversity and livelihoods must not be sacrificed for digital infrastructure that primarily serves corporate interests abroad. Three, rebalance energy and environmental priorities in developing countries. Public resources should not be diverted from essential services like drinking water, healthcare or sustainable agriculture in order to subsidize energy intensive digital infrastructure.

Four, avoid the use of dangerous or environmentally harmful energy sources such as nuclear power and large scale hydroelectric dams in powering the digital economy. The digital economy must be aligned with truly renewable community centered energy systems. Five, acknowledge data processing and storage are environmentally costly activities and must be recognized as significant contributors to climate change, not as neutral or clean by default. Six, advance a meaningful circular economy.

Circularity must go beyond recycling and address the full digital value chain from extraction to e-waste guided by principles of environmental justice, intergenerational equity and ecological limits. In sum, there can be no sustainable digital future without democratic governance, corporate accountability and respect for the communities and ecosystems affected by the whole digital value chain. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Maria Soledad for your contribution. I would like now to invite Jasmine Yee man Ko from Hong Kong Youth IGF. Jasmine, are you online? Yes, we hear you. The floor is yours.

Jasmine Yee man Ko
Thank you very much for the opportunity. So as co-panel of Hong Kong Youth IGF, so I wanna share perspective of the youth. digital native on this critical issue.

The element paper wisely call for a way to reduce the digital sectors and fundamental footprint. This is not just a technical challenge, but a moral imperative for our generation. Our generation in this early July, we convened at WSIS 2020 High Level event as well and formed the youth caucus to ensure that youth perspective are mainstream into civic society, private sector and government input for the WSIS process. And this is to empower our generation for sure.

And actually at the HKYGF, our theme for this year is to envision SMART, S-M-A-R-T, the S stands for sustainable. So we recognize the rapid expansions of the digital wind, which bring immense benefit, also carries a significant ecological cost.

So from the energy consumption of data center that have been mentioned by previous colleagues to also bring the growing numbers of the e-waste, we must ensure that our digital growth contribute positively to the environmental wellbeing rather than exacerbating climate change. So our discussion within the HKYGF here as well, consistently underscore the profound concern young people have about this issue.

And we truly believe that a transformative digital economy can only be achieved if it is built on the principle of environmental responsibility and resource management, considering the leading effort across our region as well. So some of our grassroots organizations such as Carbon Care InnoLab in Hong Kong are key partners in this missions. So the broader focus they have, is not just catalyzing climate action for a low-carbon city.

The work also involve responsible use of energy and capacity program to equip youth as being climate advocates, and as well as… accountability for robust waste management here. So here, we’re not just inheriting this planet, but we are actually actively shaping the decadal destiny.

So we urge the several jobs to strongly emphasize a concrete commitment to is a truly circular economy, which includes fostering innovation in greener ICT and promoting digital literacy when it comes to sustainable consumption of different technology. And finally, we want to ensure that the environmental consideration are embedded in every stage of digital policy making.

So let us seize the opportunity here that the business of 2020 could commit to a digital future that is also profoundly sustainable for the next generation. Thank you very much.

Suela Janina
Thank you very much, Jasmin, for your contribution. I have on the list to see a loan from Hiperderecho, but I don’t have any confirmation that she’s online. I just, I want to be sure that Lucia, are you online?

If this is not the case, then we finish with this chapter on environmental impacts. And let’s continue with contributions under the theme of bridging digital divides. And under this theme, I would like to invite Koudy Wanee from Ministry of Communication and Telecommunications, Digital Affairs of Senegal. Koudy, the floor is yours. Ms. Wanee, are you online? Koudy is live. Yes, yes, I am. Are you able to hear me? Yes, we can hear you.

Koudy Wanee
Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot, Excellency. Thanks a lot, everybody. Just, I want to highlight that over the past two decades, the World Summit on the Information Society has- as a beacon for inclusive digital cooperation. We have gathered here to discuss about all the points linked to that, mainly among them the digital divide. The digital divide is no longer just a gap.

It has become a growing chasm, a threatening to leave entire nations, communities, and generations behind. First, we must confront that the widened connectivity divide, ensuring that access to affordable, reliable, and secure digital infrastructure become a universal right, not only a privilege. And second, the skills divide demands urgent action. Without digital literacy and advanced competencies, millions of people will remain excluded from the opportunity of the digital age. Third, the innovation and government divide must be addressed.

Emerging technologies like AI, 5G, and quantum computing are reshaping our world, yet they remain concentrated in few hands. This imbalance undetermines equity, security, and trust. In updating the business action line, we cannot simply adjust the old framework. We need to transform it to take from all realities from the countries like our country, Senegal, and other countries that are left behind, not because of anybody, but just because of context. We need to address all these problematics.

We have the stocktaking platform of the ITU that we can use to really address this point. We need action lines that are bold, forward-looking, reflecting the realities of today and tomorrow. the national strategies inside this point. This means embedding digital inclusion at the core of every action line, from e-government to e-health, from cyber security, AI ethics, each must prioritize access, equity, and sustainability.

It means adopting multi-stakeholder governance model that give all voice, especially from the global south, a set at the table. The stake could not be higher if we fail to act, the digital divide will become the new face of inequity. But if we succeed, the WSIS plus 2030 will mark the beginning of a new era where digital transformation truly serve humanity, leaving no one behind.

And let us seize this moment together to rewrite the action line with urgency, ambition, and solidarity. Thanks a lot.

Suela Janina
Thank you very much, Koudy, for your intervention and for your contribution. I would like now to invite Soumya Nair from the Permanent Mission of India to the UN. Soumya, you have the floor.

Soumya Nair
Thank you, Chair. Can you hear me?

Suela Janina
Yes, we can hear you.

Soumya Nair
Thank you, Excellency.

At the outset, let me convey on behalf of the Indian government our sincere appreciation to the co-facilitators for their diligent efforts in preparing the elements paper. We also commend the co-facilitators for their inclusive, transparent, and well-structured approach, anchored in open consultations and seeking written inputs from a wide spectrum of stakeholders, reaffirming our commitment that WSIS framework should be multi-stakeholder. We have made a lot of progress over the past two decades.

However, the persistence and evolution of the digital divide remains a central challenge to the realization of WSIS outcomes. Access disparities persist not only across regions, but also within societies, rural and tribal communities, women, persons with disabilities, and linguistic minorities continue to face systemic barriers to meaningful digital participation.

We have conducted a lot of national consultations in the country, and what has come across is that many digital interfaces remain inaccessible to users with disabilities and non-Latin language speakers, undermining the vision of inclusivity. Furthermore, the divide now extends beyond connectivity, manifesting in the unequal distribution of advanced technological capabilities.

A growing concentration of control over semiconductor manufacturing and high-performance computing capacity in a few countries and firms is further deepening the technology gap between the developed world and the global south. Coupled with limited public R&D funding and institutional innovation capacity in many developing countries, this restricts the global south’s ability to engage substantively with frontier technologies like artificial intelligence.

To address the issue of digital divide due to language barrier, India is making substantial progress in advancing AI technology for Indian languages through open source contributions. The focus areas include transliteration, natural language, understanding, generation, translation, automatic speech recognition, and speech synthesis.

Excellencies, exploring different ways of addressing this multidimensional and widening digital divide across access, affordability, language, ability, and innovation capacity must be a central priority in the WSIS Plus 20 review process, and we hope this is duly reflected in the Zero Draft. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you very much, Soumya, for your presence and your contribution. I would like now to invite Roddy McGlynn from Global Systems for Mobile Communication Association. Roddy, can you confirm if you are online?

Roddy McGlynn
Yep. Can you hear me all right?

Suela Janina
Yes, Roddy, we can hear you.

Roddy McGlynn
Fantastic. Thank you. So the original WSIS declaration states that building a… people-centered information society is a joint effort, which requires cooperation and partnership among all stakeholders. As we take part in this review, it is crucial that the final output is the result of an inclusive collaboration between different sectors.

And I want to thank the co-facilitators for the efforts they’ve made so far to bring in a diverse range of issues, a diverse range of policy and perspectives on digital issues. When it comes to digital divides, we see that broadband networks now reach 96% of the global population, but only 57% use mobile internet. This means that around two in every five people, more than 3 billion people remain offline despite being covered by broadband infrastructure.

This usage gap is nine times the size of the coverage gap, which still affects 4% of people worldwide. Closing the coverage gap remains very challenging, but technologies like satellite are helping form part of the solution. However, addressing the usage gap will require a concerted, collective and collaborative approach to break multiple barriers.

GSMA data and research show that people face several barriers to mobile internet adoption and use, including affordability, particularly of handsets, literacy and digital skills, and safety and security concerns. As the WSIS review takes place, it must refocus multi-stakeholder efforts on addressing these barriers and ensuring that everyone everywhere can enjoy the benefits of connectivity. We know these barriers affect different groups of people in different ways.

Women across low and middle income countries are 14% less likely to use mobile internet than men, resulting in 235 fewer women, 235 million fewer women than men accessing mobile internet services. This disparity is particularly significant given mobile connectivity remains the primary means through which most people, and especially women, access the internet and digital services in low and middle income countries. The Zero Draft must explicitly highlight these challenges.

The usage gap, barriers to internet adoption, the digital gender divide, and offer a text that will refocus multi-stakeholder efforts on tackling them, ensuring that people everywhere can enjoy the benefits of connectivity. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Roddy, for your contribution. I would like to invite Abdeldjalil Bachar Bong, from the House of Africa. Could you please confirm if you are online?

If this is not the case, I would like to invite James Kunle Olorundare, from Internet Society, ISOC, Nigeria Chapter. James, the floor is yours.

James Kunle Olorundare
Thank you very much, Madam Ambassador. It’s a pleasure to be here. So hello, everyone. My name is Kunle Olorundare, the president of Internet Society Nigerian chapter, and I do as the president of Jacobian Sam Care Foundation. I’m happy to be here and excited to contribute to WSIS Plus 20 consultation.

I haven’t submitted a contribution before this time, so I’ll be speaking on digital divide beyond the traditional meaning. The digital divide encompasses disparities in infrastructure and access to emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, data systems. This remains a critical barrier to global digital equity. As previously outlined, the divide between the global North and South manifests in limited connectivity. For example, 37% internet penetration in sub-Saharan Africa, as against 90% in North America, according to ITU 2024.

Unequal access to computational resources and biased AI data sets that marginalize non-Western population platforms, like the Internet Governance Forum, with its 20-year legacy and commitment to multistakeholder dialogue, are pivotal in addressing these challenges. This note aligns this effort with the World Summit on Information Society Action Lines and the Global Digital Compact to ensure a cohesive, inclusive, and sustainable solution. And I would like to talk about the role of IGF.

The IGF multistakeholder model for string dialogue among governments, civil society, and industry is critical for sustained progress. Its 20-year legacy demonstrates its ability to share best practices in the community, Wi-Fi models, and address emerging issues like AI ethics. Moving forward, the IGF must strengthen regional forums for localized solutions, dedicate sessions to artificial intelligence, data governance, and next-generation connectivity, amplify underrepresented voices to ensure inclusivity, including those people that are not even connected. Alignment with WSIS Action Lines.

This approach aligns with WSIS Action Line C2, Information and Communication Infrastructure, which emphasizes a universal, affordable, and equitable access to ICT. It supports infrastructure development through scalable solutions like new satellites and community networks. Additionally, it aligns with Action Line C7, ICT applications, specifically e-learning and e-science, by promoting AI and data-driven tools for. education and innovation in underserved region, that’s action line C11.

This is also relevant as the IGS must support our platform for start global collaboration to address these divides. Now, I will talk about alignment with Global Digital Compact. The GDC adopted to advance a shared vision for the inclusive digital future complement this effort. It aligns with objective one, that is closing the digital divide. Objective three, that is the one on data governance.

And of course, objective five, artificial intelligence with decentralized AI development and capacity building reflect the GDC call for inclusive human-centric AI systems. So I will conclude with these following solutions. Number one, to avoid digital colonialism or environmental harm, we need to have inclusive policies, engage diverse stakeholders to prevent monopolistic control, sustainable technologies that prioritizes great solutions like energy efficient data center.

Then of course, cultural sensitivity in terms of ensuring that AI system use diverse data set to avoid bias. And we must strengthen multi-stakeholder model at all level from our community to the global level. And I conclude by saying that bridging the digital divide requires addressing infrastructure, artificial intelligence and data disparities through platforms like the IGF, which foster inclusive dialogue by aligning with this action line C2, C7 and C11 and GDC’s objectives as outlined above.

These efforts can drive equitable digital ecosystems. The IGF’s continued evolution building on its 20-year legacy ensure it remains a cornerstone for global cooperation, empowering communities without introducing new forms of inclusion. Thank you very much.

Suela Janina
Thank you. Thank you, James. With you, we conclude the discussions under the theme of bridging the… digital divides and we will continue with the next chapter of discussions under the enabling environment.

And I would like to invite Mr. Paul Blaker from Department for Science, Innovation and Technology of the United Kingdom. Paul, the floor is yours.

Paul Blaker
Thank you very much. And we’d like to thank the co-facilitators for organizing this session and for the elements paper which provides a good overview of the issues. We were really pleased to see an emphasis on the enabling environment in the paper, which is so important for investment in meaningful connectivity, sustainable development and digital transformation.

The most important challenge for the WSIS review to address is the fact that there are still nearly 3 billion people who are offline and the elements paper rightly focuses on promoting connectivity, capacity building and achieving the STGs. We hope that the different elements of an enabling environment will be developed more in the Zero Draft because there is a really big and important agenda here.

That includes issues such as the effective use of universal service funds, competition and affordability, enabling regulation and licensing frameworks, the efficient use of radio spectrum, community networks, proportionate taxation and public private partnerships To promote meaningful connectivity, we would also like to see a section on the gender digital divide in the Zero Draft, including recognition of the role that UN women can play here.

In addition, we’d like to see stronger and clearer human rights language fully based on the language of the ICCPR and the UN guiding principles on business and human rights. The UN OHCHR plays an important role here which should be included and issues such as internet shutdowns and the protection of journalists and independent media are also critically important.

Over the last few months, we’ve been really pleased to see the amount of support for a new ongoing mandate for the IGF without a time limitation. Local and regional IGFs should also be recognised given the important role they play promoting inclusion and representation. Finally, we’d like to see the Zero Draft reflect the language agreed in the GDC and not reopen issues that were agreed less than a year ago.

The GDC gives us a very good basis for consensus. We hope the draft does not reopen an old debate about the phrase enhanced cooperation. There have been many fruitless discussions of this in the past and it risks becoming an obstacle to progress. Instead, we hope the review will develop a more positive future-focused agenda promoting greater global representation and greater inclusion in policy-making processes, as well as an enabling environment which promotes meaningful connectivity for all.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak and we look forward to the continuing discussion.

Suela Janina
Thank you very much Mr. Blaker for this contribution. Now I would like to invite Timea Suto from International Chamber of Commerce to take the floor. Timea, the floor is yours.

Timea Suto
Thank you very much Ambassador. Let me begin by thanking you and your team for the work that you have carried out and your commitment to engage the multistakeholder community.

I’m pleased to share a few brief remarks on behalf of the International Chamber of Commerce, the institutional representative of over 45 million companies in more than 170 countries. We welcome the reference to enabling environment in the elements paper. It is a good starting point. To be truly effective, however, the WSIS plus 20 outcome document should more clearly define what such an environment looks like in practice.

Governments have made important progress throughout national strategies and legal frameworks that expand digital access and support the innovation. At the same time, the scale of digital transformation ahead requires full engagement from all actors, especially the private sector, which has been a core partner in developing and deploying infrastructure, services and skills. To sustain and grow private investment in support of the WSIS goals, enabling environments must provide legal stability and regulatory clarity.

This is not about deregulation, but about smart, inclusive policymaking that considers how investment decisions are made and how services are sustainably delivered over time. A second element is openness, especially the ability for data to move across borders. Digital economies depend on cross-border connections and restrictions on data flows have unintended consequences, especially for SMEs and global value chains. Where privacy or security justify limitations, measures must be transparent, proportionate and non-discriminatory. Third, a whole-of-government approach is necessary.

Digital transformation affects every sector, so coordinated policymaking helps ensure coherence and better outcomes for people and businesses alike. Coordination should also be pursued at the international, regional and subnational levels. Finally, multi-stakeholder engagement is of key to effective policy design. Collaboration between governments, business, civil society and the technical community ensures that policies are grounded in practical realities, responsive to local needs and shaped with a long-term view.

So in closing, we encourage the text of the outcome document to more clearly reflect the full range of conditions that define an enabling environment for sustainable digital development. Stable policy frameworks, open and interoperable markets, a whole-of-government approach, international collaboration and meaningful multi-stakeholder engagement. Thank you very much, Ambassador.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Team EYA, for your contribution. Now I’d like to invite Ms. Fiona Alexander from American University. Professor Alexander, the floor is yours.

Fiona Alexander
Thank you very much, and thank you to the co-facilitators and the team at DESA for organizing this consultation. for the WSIS Plus 20 review. As a veteran government negotiator throughout the entire five-year original WSIS process, it is critical that one of the key achievements of the WSIS, the opening of the room for all to meaningfully engage, is honored and maintained in this all-important anniversary year.

With that in mind, I wanna commend the co-facilitators for making efforts to create avenues for stakeholder involvement, such as their active engagement at the recent Internet Governance Forum and other venues, the swift creation of the informal multi-stakeholder sounding board, and today’s session, which includes both governments and non-government stakeholders. I am, however, disappointed to see that of the 91 speakers scheduled to speak today, only 14 of those, so roughly 15%, are governments.

To truly live up to the promise of multi-stakeholder approaches, we need to move past performative consultations. While today’s session represents a small step forward, I continue to wonder if the UN New York system can actually be adapted to achieve meaningful multi-stakeholder shared decision-making. With respect to today’s agenda of the elements paper and the path forward to the end of the year resolution, I offer the following four observations.

First, the WSIS Plus 20 final document should be fact-based and recognize the meaningful progress that has been made over the last 20 years. In that regard, it should not simply be a restatement of the disputes of the past, but rather clearly articulate our shared successes while also identifying where gaps or challenges remain. The WSIS Plus 10 language or last year’s Global Digital Compact text can be instructive. Second, better outcomes and decisions occur when all perspectives are included.

This is why the multi-stakeholder model, including shared decision-making, has been so critical to the internet’s success. The WSIS Plus 20 resolution should acknowledge and recommit to multi-stakeholder approaches, including clearly recognizing the role of all stakeholders, governments, the private sector, the technical community, civil society, and academia. Third, it’s well past time for the UN system to fully embrace the Internet Governance Forum. The fact that a distributed ecosystem of national and regional IGFs has organically sprung up around it proves the value that stakeholders, including governments, find in this approach. The IGF should be renewed with a permanent, if not long-term mandate, and funding resources be allocated. And finally, given the lingering concerns about the GDC process of last year, as well as the budget concerns facing the UN system, it is unrealistic to think that the UN can continue to run duplicative and or reductive processes.

Any GDC implementation or follow-up should move into the existing Ulysses framework, either through the annual WSIS Forum or the IGF. And unclear phrases like enhanced cooperation should not be recycled. In that regard, I’d like to associate with the comments made earlier by the UK. Prior to new lines of effort or working groups being created, there should be a clear terms of reference agreed. Thank you for the opportunity to share my views.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Fiona, for your contribution. I would like to invite Elonnai Hickok from Global Network Initiative to take the floor. Elonnai, the floor is yours.

Elonnai Hickok
Thank you very much. My name is Elonnai Hickok, and I’m the Managing Director at the Global Network Initiative. Thank you to the co-facilitators for the opportunity to participate in this consultation on the Ulysses Elements paper.

GNI is a multi-stakeholder organization working towards responsible business conduct, bringing together companies, civil society, academics, and investors. We are a member of the Global Digital Rights Coalition and endorse the submission to the Elements paper by the coalition. We are also running a project in collaboration with Global Partners Digital to support local civil society in eight jurisdictions to engage in the Ulysses Plus 20 process.

This has resulted in a published research compendium with national level chapters on national priorities for Ulysses. GNI made a submission to the Elements paper as GNI, as well as in collaboration with Global Partners Digital and project partners. This statement is on behalf of GNI. We welcome the reference to the enabling environment. To be enabling and coherent, it is critical that regulatory and policy environments are grounded in and aligned with international human rights.

To achieve this, each aspect of the WSIS framework should recognize and promote international human rights frameworks, including the UDHR, the ICCPR, and the ICECSR. The WSIS framework should promote the adoption and implementation of the UNGPs by the private sector and states. The WSIS framework should promote the development of regulatory ecosystems that have in place key elements such as grievance mechanisms, independent judiciary, independent oversight, and accountability.

It should promote the formation of regulation through open and transparent consultations. Civil society ecosystems must be supported at the national level. Government projects and initiatives that are meant to promote development, such as DPI, need to be legally backed and aligned with international human rights frameworks. Government powers, including around surveillance, should be guided by the principles of necessity, proportionality, and legality.

A multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance should be promoted, encompassing all stakeholders, civil society, academia, the technical community, and the private sector. Spaces like the IGF and the national and regional IGFs are critical spaces to discussing aspects related to the enabling environment. The mandate of the IGF should be renewed and made permanent with adequate and dedicated funding. It should recognize the role and the work of the national and regional IGFs and articulate ways to strengthen these forums.

The role of the UNCHR and digital government should be recognized. The Zero Draft and WSIS framework should address themes that tie into an enabling environment, such as platform accountability, digital repression, conflict in digital technologies, and shrinking civic space. Thank you very much.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Elonnai, for your contribution. I would like to invite Mrinalini Dayal from the Alliance for Universal Digital Rights. Mrinalini, the floor is yours. Thank you so much.

Mrinalini Dayal
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. My name is Mrinalini Dayal, and I’m the global coordinator for the Alliance for Universal Digital Rights, co-founded by Equality Now and Women Leading in AI. The Alliance is a global network of CSOs advocating for digital rights rooted in gender equality, human rights, and intersectional feminist values.

As part of the Gender and Digital Coalition, we recently submitted inputs to the Elements paper with signatories including including Equality Now, APC, Direchos Digitales, Women at the Table, and IT4Change. We applaud and support the vision to build a people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society, which can only be realized through a multi-stakeholder approach in which there is equal participation of all women, LGBTQI plus individuals, and other structurally marginalized communities.

We believe the critical barriers that need to be urgently addressed are, first, a lack of systemic gender perspective and gender mainstreaming across WSIS action lines, which is key as structural inequality leads to digital inclusion, sorry, digital exclusion, especially in the global majority. The second is technology-facilitated gender-based violence being viewed through a punitive approach instead of a rights-based approach, which in some cases has led to disproportionate censorship, surveillance, or the penalization of those seeking protection.

The third is transnational technology corporations remaining largely unaccountable for human rights violations, particularly those of a gendered nature, which are facilitated through their platforms and data infrastructures. And the fourth, digital colonialism through data extraction, algorithmic bias, and the concentration of digital infrastructure in the global North. Our key recommendations to address these challenges are, first and the most important, the establishment of a standalone WSIS action line on gender.

This action line would offer a clear framework for addressing gender inequality in digital development with defined goals, measurable targets, and dedicated resources. It should include obligations on access to data, gender-specific indicators and targets, mandatory gender impact assessments, increased representation, dedicated funding, and a comprehensive approach to TFGBV.

Other priorities include effective gender mainstreaming in the action lines, such as Action Line C10, in which we propose intersectional benchmarks on digital human rights and due diligence guidance for transnational corporations and other business enterprises on women’s human rights and ecological sustainability in digital value chains. The third recommendation is an effective gender-based inclusion in digital governance spaces, including. ensuring 50% of women’s representation across all WSIS governance and technical bodies.

And the fourth is mandatory gender assessments and technology foresight of data and AI systems. And the final one being public financing for meaningful and affordable access. These comments are intended to support the strengthening of the elements paper to reflect the evolving digital landscape, center rights-based approaches, and ensure meaningful inclusion of historically marginalized groups and regions. Gender must be placed at the core of this process, promoting a guiding framework for shaping inclusive and equitable digital governance.

Thank you so much.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Mrinalini Dayal, for your contribution. Now let’s continue with the next discussions on financial mechanisms. I would like to invite Ivo Miguel Rubio from the Permanent Mission of Angola to the United Nations. Ivo, the floor is yours. Can you confirm if Ivo Miguel Rubio is online? If this is not the case, we can continue with the next speaker. Carlos Baca Feldman from Rhizomatica. Carlos, are you online?

Carlos Baca Feldman
Yes, I am here.

Suela Janina
Please, Carlos, the floor is yours. Carlos Baca Feldman: Hi, hi, everyone. Thanks for making this possible. To make this consultation, I just want to point out some of the main topics we are discussing in the connectivity for communities that are on serve in the different parts of the world.

So I want to share that while we see ambitions, people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society have a lot of goals make it and a lot of efforts that are happening now. we think that indigenous people, rural communities and unserved urban communities remain excluded for meaningful participation and direct access to those resources.

So, but at the same time, what is happening is that these communities are already creating connectivity and access solution in the reality or facing the reality for example, are not reaching them directly.

So we need to rethink a little bit how we are doing this and what are the main ways of the projects that are useful for the communities and how we can finance them and we can let them to obtain the funds that are necessary to do that.

So despite we need to recognize that a lot of the achievements of the WSIS process has been the gradual recognition of this community-led and community-centered connectivity models as a legitimate and effective strategies to advance digital inclusion, it has been done more in the rhetorical arena. We still lack a mechanism to redistribute the resources and make decision-making possible in a collective and in the ways that the community are doing that.

So for that, I think we think it is important to make a direct, flexible and culturally grounded funding that support, for example, content production, digital content production and also make possible, for example, to access to technologies that are good and that are needed for the communities. Of course, we need to face a lot of challenges in this way.

For example, they create strategies for capacity building so that people can obtain the skills for financial management, reporting, governance, etc. That is important to manage their own funds but with the legal recognition of of these collective actors as actors who can receive directly the funds and can deal with their own connectivity solutions in a better way. Thanks, thanks everyone.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Carlos, for your contribution. Now I would like to invite Sadhana Sanjay from Global Digital Justice Forum. Sadhana, you have the floor.

Sadhana Sanjay
Thank you very much. Hello, everyone. My name is Sadhana speaking today on behalf of the Global Digital Justice Forum and IT4Change. In the 20 years since the World Summit on Information Society, inequalities in the digital paradigm have only deepened. A third of the world’s population, around two and a half billion people, remain offline.

The majority of the unconnected are in the Global South who are excluded also because of their class, race, geography, and gender. This divide is also now prominent in the emerging AI economy with the compute capabilities and infrastructure required for AI development concentrated in a handful of countries, predominantly the United States.

These stark illustrations of digital inequality can be traced back both to the failure to provide for adequate public financing mechanisms to bridge these divides, as well as anachronistic tax regimes that are ill-suited to the transnational and virtual operation of tech corporations. Market-led approaches to development financing have not delivered on addressing these inequalities. They have instead only exacerbated the debt crisis with countries often spending more on interest payments than even food security and healthcare.

Countries in the Global South are also denied tax revenue from the digital economy’s explosive growth through customs moratorium on electronic transmissions, digital trade rules, and corporate tax avoidance. The cumulative impact of inadequate public financing mechanisms as well as the flight of tax revenue is that countries are deprived of the resources to build essential digital infrastructure, bridge the digital divides, and guarantee the right of access and meaningful connectivity for all.

In short, to ensure that digital innovation dividends serve their societies and communities. To promote long-term digital. infrastructural and human capabilities for the majority world, the WSIS plus 20 outcome document must respond adequately to structural economic inequalities by addressing the public financing deficit. We therefore recommend the following proposals for public financing.

Firstly, a digital development tax whereby dominant tech corporations contribute to the connectivity of those who are still offline and to a safer digital world as proposed in our common agenda. The institution of a global task force on financing for inclusive digital transformation with member states as well as experts in public finance, fiscal justice and digital governance.

This task force can take a leave out of initiatives such as the global solidarity levies task force and enable coordinated fiscal reform for the digital economy. And lastly, stronger international action to tackle tax evasion and illicit financial flows in the context of virtual and cross-border business operations. We recognize that digital justice and fiscal justice are intertwined faiths and we encourage the WSIS plus 20 outcome document to operate with this recognition.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Sadhana for your contribution. Now I would like to invite Anriette Esterhuysen from the Association for Progressive Communications. Anriette , the floor is yours.

Anriette Esterhuysen
Thanks very much ambassador, Janina and everyone else. APC is a global network of more than 80 organizations working with technology for social, gender and environmental justice.

We’re also part of the Global Digital Justice Forum, the Global Digital Rights Coalition for WSIS and the Alliance for Universal Rights. And we want to commend you for the openness of this process and for including state and non-state actors together in this consultation. We want to highlight five critical challenges. Many of these have been mentioned already. Firstly, digital inequality. insufficient financing for WSIS implementation. Financing is unfinished business in the WSIS process.

Thirdly, erosion of the concept of the public interest in digital governance discourse. And fourthly, gaps in human rights integration into the WSIS process and framework. And fifthly, environmental harms, which now are often greater than the benefits that we get from digitalization. We want to prioritize five related priorities for action. Firstly, addressing digital equality by acknowledging, as others have said, that market-led approaches are not sufficient.

We need to diversify access markets through enabling regulation and financing for community-led connectivity initiatives. And we need more public investment in human and institutional capacity to build infrastructure, skills, content, and valuable public services.

Secondly, we support the notion of establishing a dedicated task force to explore and propose innovative and blended financing mechanisms, including public finance, the revision of universal service funds, as the UK had said, looking at development bonds, for example, new initiatives, and drawing on tax revenue sourced from global digital transactions and companies.

But we think there are many mechanisms that can be explored, and the recent UN Global Conference on Financing for Development, in its outcome document, actually describes many of these. Thirdly, we think we can reclaim the public interest in digital development by increasing corporate accountability through public interest and human rights oriented regulation. And we also support the idea of reviving the digital information commons, the remarks made by the Wikimedia Foundation earlier.

Fourthly, we believe strongly that the ethics last. language in Action Line C10 needs to be complemented and strengthened by concrete reference to human rights standards and the 2012 General Assembly Resolution that rights that apply offline also apply online. And then, fifthly, we think that environmental sustainability can be mainstreamed by mandating impact assessments of tech innovation and integrating green practices across all the Action Lines. Going forward, we want to suggest five ways of strengthening the WSIS framework.

Firstly, by integrating global digital compact language, principles, objectives and follow-up into the WSIS framework. Secondly, integrating gender equality into all the WSIS Action Lines with specific goals, targets and indicators. Thirdly, making the IGF mandate permanent and recognising that the scope of the IGF now goes beyond just internet governance to include broader digital governance.

Fourthly, we do believe that enhanced cooperation, or at least the effective equitable participation of governments on an equal footing in digital and internet-related public policy, remains relevant for the global South. And we believe that CSDD can be strengthened as a space for intergovernmental discussion on emerging internet-related digital public policy issues.

And then, fifthly and finally, we think that both multilateral and multi-stakeholder digital governance processes within the UN, as well as overlapping with the UN, can be strengthened and needs to continue to evolve to make them effective and inclusive.

And then, in closing, we know all of this might sound daunting, but we think that the necessary building blocks exist in the WSIS vision and principles, the lessons learned over the last 20 years, and the UN’s human rights-based approach to development. What is needed is a renewed common global commitment to using all these building blocks, and we trust that the WSIS plus 20 outcome will provide that. Thank you very much.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Anriette , for your contribution. Now, we will go to discuss the next topic, which is on human rights and ethical dimensions. And here, I would like to invite Elina Volskone from Microsoft to take the floor. Elina, the floor is yours.

Elina Volksone
Thank you, Ambassador. Dear co-facilitators, thank you for this opportunity, and we sincerely appreciate your efforts to bring together all stakeholders. The Elements paper appropriately affirms that human rights remain central to the WSIS vision.

Building an inclusive, open, safe, and secure digital space requires that all stakeholders actively respect, protect, and promote human rights. As the WSIS plus 20 review process moves forward, we strongly encourage a reaffirmation of this human rights-centered approach, while also expanding the narrative to recognize the constructive role technology plays in upholding and advancing these values.

Global Digital Compact took meaningful steps towards embedding human rights in digital governance, but a more comprehensive and balanced framing is needed in the WSIS plus 20 outcome document. Human rights must be treated not only as binding legal standards, but as guiding principles that actively shape digital ecosystems across sectors and regions.

As the Zero Dove takes shape, we believe it could greatly benefit from a more balanced framing of human rights, one that not only highlights the risks and challenges, but also affirms the transformative potential of digital technologies. Technology, when responsibly developed and governed in alignment with human rights principles, offers tangible solutions. It can expand access to education and healthcare, strengthen civic engagement, and foster inclusive economic opportunities.

In this light, technology should not be viewed solely as a risk. It must be understood also as a driver of equity, dignity, and societal resilience. As digital transformation continues to redefine every sphere of life, governance frameworks must include strong references to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related international rights agreements. These commitments are not aspirational, they are foundational.

In this regard, we are concerned by the omission of explicit references to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights within the human rights section of the elements paper. Effective digital governance must go beyond regulatory compliance to embrace the ethical frameworks found in instruments like the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. These serve as a crucial compass for the private sector, promoting responsible conduct, and fostering digital environments that are accountable, inclusive, and rights-respecting.

The WSIS plus 20 review process presents a pivotal moment to reaffirm human rights as the core of digital global policy, while also championing technology’s potential to build a fairer, more inclusive future. Greater synergy with the global digital compact and emerging governance models, especially in areas such as artificial intelligence, can help ensure a future where digital progress and human rights thrive together, leaving no one behind. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Elina, for your contribution. I would like to call now Mr. Jalal Abu-Karter. Just to confirm if Mr. Jalali is online, if this is not the case, then I will kindly ask Ellie McDonald from Global Digital Rights Coalition for WSIS to take the floor. Ellie, the floor is yours.

Ellie McDonald
Thank you, Your Excellencies, colleagues. My name is Ellie McDonald and I am delivering this statement on behalf of the Global Digital Rights Coalition for WSIS.

This is based on a written input by 18 organisations from the global majority and Global North with decades of collective experience in human rights-based internet public policy. We welcome that today’s consultation is taking place with all stakeholders. We recommend that this precedent continues throughout the process and be replicated in others. We see the elements paper as a positive first step to build on it and ensure a people-centric and rights-respecting WSIS outcome.

We recommend that the Zero Draft should, firstly, ensure a human rights-based and gender-responsive approach, including through anchoring the language in international human rights law and standards, underscoring the universality, interdependence and indivisibility of all human rights, reaffirming the obligations of states to respect, protect and fulfil human rights, clarifying that any limitation on the rights to privacy and freedom of expression must comply with the principles of legality, necessity and proportionality, reasserting the UN guiding principles on business and human rights and the responsibilities of the private sector to respect human rights throughout the technological life cycle, including through affirming human rights due diligence and impact assessments, assigning the OHCHR the responsibility to ensure that all human rights are protected and protected in the context of the WSIS Framework.

Secondly, we recommend that the WSIS Framework be a role as a co-facilitator of Action Line 10 on human rights and ethics, thereby securing its place in the future implementation of the WSIS Framework. Secondly, commit to additional measures to achieve meaningful connectivity and address Thirdly, reinforce the multistakeholder approach to Internet governance, referencing the agreed definition of Internet governance and acknowledging all stakeholder groups.

Additionally, consider proposals to operationalise the multistakeholder approach, building on initiatives like the IMSB and the São Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines. Fourthly, institutionalise the IGF as a permanent structure with dedicated and sustained funding. Fifthly, restate the commitment to publish a joint implementation roadmap to integrate the Global Digital Compact commitments through the WSIS Framework, as stated in the ECOSOC resolution on WSIS Plus 20 follow-up adopted today. Additionally, establish a clear pathway for multistakeholder engagement in their joint implementation.

We encourage you to consider our recommendations, included in more detail in our written input, and we remain available for support. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Ellie, for your contribution. Now I would like to invite Jutta Croll from Digital Opportunities Foundation, Germany. Jutta, the floor is yours. Jutta Croll: Thank you, dear co-facilitator, dear excellency. and distinguished participants.

I’m speaking on behalf of the Digital Opportunities Foundation Germany and as the co-facilitator of dynamic coalitions at the Internet Governance Forum. As it was the case in 1989 when the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the General Assembly, it is also nowadays necessary to ensure the rights of children as an especially vulnerable group are respected, protected and fulfilled in the digital environment.

The Yen Committee on the Rights of the Child have acknowledged the important role digitalization plays in nowadays children’s lives and therefore have adopted the general comment number 25 on children’s rights in the digital environment in 2021. In the era of digitalization these last four years, although a short period of time, are a phase of very fast development and technical innovation.

With generative AI, quantum computing and virtual reality we are on the threshold to a new and augmented digital environment. The metaverse is laying ahead of us and children will be its earliest inhabitants. These developments have to be taken into account for the WSIS plus 20 process in order to give sustainable and reliable guidance to the future progress and adhere to human rights.

From a child rights perspective we consider the reference in paragraph 6 of the Elements paper to the rule of law being essential for building a human-centered information society as crucial and we welcome the emphasis on the need to foster an inclusive, open, safe and secure digital space that respects, protects and promotes human rights. In this regard we underline the need to uphold the UNCRC as a cornerstone of a human rights-based approach.

The information society holds huge potential for children to exercise their rights. We welcome this as addressed in Paragraph 46, 49 and 54 of the elements paper. In addition, we suggest to amend Paragraph 46 as follows. To ensure children’s best interests and their personal integrity in the digital environments, their rights to protection, provision and participation must be respected and fulfilled in a balanced approach, not prioritizing one right over another.

We also welcome the reference to the multi-stakeholder approach in Paragraph 57 to 64 and suggest to amend Paragraph 59 in line with the UNCRC Article 12 as follows. Children’s perspectives shall be presented either by themselves or by child rights advocates to ensure their views are given due weight in internet governance. Thank you for having my opinion today.

Suela Janina
Thank you Jutta for your presence and your contribution. Now I’d like to invite Laura Becana Ball from Global Forum for Media Development to take the floor. Laura, the floor is yours. Laura

Becana Ball
Thank you, your excellencies, colleagues. I’m speaking on behalf of the Global Forum for Media Development, a global network of more than 200 media development and journalism support organizations working to protect and strengthen journalism as a public good.

This statement summarized three key points from our written inputs to the elements paper, focusing on what we hope to see reflected in the zero draft and the outcome document. First, echoing the statement by the Global Digital Rights Coalition for OASIS whose submission we fully endorse, we want to re-stress that the text should be firmly anchored in international human rights law by reaffirming the obligations of states to respect, protect, and fulfill human rights.

And in particular, clarify that any limitation on freedom of expression must meet the criteria of legality, necessity, and proportionality. It should also reference the UN guiding principles on business and human rights and the private sector’s role and responsibility to respect human rights.

Secondly, the text should explicitly recognize that independent journalism and public interest media are essential to a people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society and that they are key to ensuring access to relevant, timely, local, multilingual, and fact-based information. So this is not a niche issue. The way the internet is governed directly affects the survival of independent journalism and with it, the public’s access to reliable information and their meaningful democratic participation.

Sustainable development goals cannot be achieved in environments where access to reliable independent information is suppressed, or where media systems are weak and unprotected. Therefore, strengthening journalism independence and sustainability must be a key priority, supported with safe words against online harassment and sustained funding among others. Otherwise, the production and availability of reliable, independent and fact-based information online will continue to decline.

Fulfilling commitments to support and protect media and journalism in their vital role that are made in the Pact for the Future or in the recently adopted Sevilla Commitment requires robust, human rights-based digital governance frameworks. Which brings me to my third and final point. The text should reinforce the multi-stakeholder governance model across all digital policy processes.

As already stated by the Global Digital Rights Coalition for WSIS and some of its members, this includes the joint implementation of the Global Digital Compact commitments into the WSIS framework, guided by the Sao Paulo Multi-Stakeholder Guidelines, and the institutionalization of the IGF as a permanent structure with adequate, dedicated and sustained funding, among others.

We urge you to carry these recommendations which you can find in more detail in our written input, and we remain available for any support you might need in the next steps of the process. Wishing you the best luck, and thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Laura, for your contribution, for the written statement, and for this presentation today, I would like now to invite Kim Ringmar Sylwander from the Digital Futures for Freedom Children’s Center, London School of Economics and Political Science. Kim, the floor is yours.

Kim Ringmar Sylwander
Hi, thank you, Madam Ambassador, and thank you to the co-facilitators for convening this important consultation. My name is Dr. Kim Sylwander from the Digital Futures for Children Center, which is a joint research center between the London School of Economics and Five Rights Foundation. Our work explores the challenges and opportunities that digital technologies present for children’s rights, and we’re guided by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s general comment number 25 on children’s rights in the digital environment that Jutta Kroll just mentioned. talked about.

Despite decades of recognition under international law, children’s rights remain inadequately reflected in global policy, and this has real and ongoing consequences in the digital environment, including routine rights violations and harms, exploitative data practices, exclusion from decision making, and systems that prioritize profit over child protection. WSIS plus 20 is a vital opportunity to correct this historical and continuing oversight.

Following the lead of the Global Digital Compact, we welcome the recognition in paragraph 46 of the elements paper and beyond, which states that the development of ICTs should respect children’s rights protection and well-being, but we recognize that more is needed and the language can be strengthened. Children make up a third of global internet users, yet their needs, experiences, and rights remain marginal in digital governance globally.

To inform the WSIS 20 plus 20 review and consultation, we therefore convened a global expert consultation earlier this year, which included high-level child rights experts from UNICEF, the ITU, UNESCO, UN Special Representatives, and the Committee on the Rights of the Child, international NGOs, and key academics, and we’d like to draw on five priorities that emerged from this consultation to inform the input that we submitted to the elements paper.

The first priority recognizes that WSIS, in line with the language of the GDC and international human rights law, should streamline the recognition of children as a distinct rights holder group in the zero draft and beyond, alongside women, persons with disabilities, and Indigenous peoples, as befits children’s distinct legal status under the UN Convention on Rights of the Child. It should also adopt further a holistic approach to children’s rights and seek to embed the committee’s general comment number 25. into digital governance frameworks.

Priority number two is focused on access, which remains profoundly unequal, both globally and within societies, often exacerbating existing inequalities. Inequalities of access and inclusion must be rectified globally without placing children at risk. Priority number three recognizes that children’s rights are commonly violated in digital spaces, largely because digital products and services were not designed with children in mind.

Priority actions should require digital services providers to embed child rights by design principles, and including privacy by default, safety by default, and ethical AI. Number four, these must be enforced through binding regulation, regular auditing, and remedies for rights violations, including via child rights impact assessment and effective enforcement. The UN and other international agencies must remain independent of tech industries’ interests and rebalance global digital policy towards human rights, including children’s.

In short, children’s rights must be central to the WSIS plus 20 process, not just acknowledged, but systematically integrated and enforced. Thank you so much.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Dr. Sylwander, for your contribution. And with this, we conclude the discussions under the topic of human rights and ethical dimensions. And we can continue with the next theme, which is confidence and security.

And here I would like to invite Roman Zimin from the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations to take the floor. Mr. Zimin, the floor is yours.

Roman Zimin
Thank you very much, dear ambassador, dear colleagues. The Russian Federation appreciates the work done by the authors of the WSIS elements paper. We have studied it and sent our comments.

We expect that our proposals will be fully taken into account during the preparation of the draft resolution. 20 years after the beginning of the WSIS. of this process, WSIS remains the key process within the framework of the UAL that is responsible for bridging digital gap. We’re sure that to achieve this goal, it’s crucial to contribute to the ICT capacity building, technology transfer and personal training.

Though during the recent years, a lot of things have been done, the majority of WSIS tasks remain unfulfilled in a complete way. The situation rather than adding new disputable concepts such as the information integrity into the WSIS process should become the priority during the review and if it is approved for the future WSIS period.

Another important feature is to harmonize the implementation of WSIS decisions with other digital initiatives within the UN to avoid the duplication of their efforts. As for the ICT security, the Russian Federation traditionally calls for discussing these issues within the specialized UN formats. During the last five years, it has been the open-ended working group on security in the use of ICTs and its efforts will be inherited soon by the correspondent permanent mechanism.

But we understand that the issues of ICT security are closely connected to the use of ICTs for development. In this respect, it’s quite clearly desirable for us to inherit the UN efforts in this field in the WSIS elements paper as it used to be during the previous review that took place 10 years ago. We suppose that both of these structures that I have already mentioned should be included into the section of the elements paper on ICT security.

The Budapest Convention on the Contrary is not worth to be mentioned as it is a regional initiative. At the same time. we do not support using the cyber terminology as it is a non-consensus one. In this sense, we prefer such terms as ICT security and ICT crime rather than the language that we have in the elements paper now. The Russian party is ready to work with the partners in order to prepare a decent draft resolution.

Thank you for your attention.

Suela Janina
Thank you to the distinguished delegate of the Russian Federation for the presence and the contribution. Now I would like to invite Mr. Lucien Castex from Association Francaise pour le Nomage Internal en Coopération. Mr. Lucien, you have the floor.

Lucien Castex
Thank you, Excellency, colleagues from around the world. This contribution is based on a written contribution and is on behalf of AFNIC, the French Internet Registry and Network Information Centre.

We would like to welcome the opportunity to actively contribute to the WSIS plus 20 review process and for the publication of this element paper. In the last 20 years since the WSIS, the digital transformation of society has been extensive and increasingly ubiquitous. The Internet has allowed billions of people to connect and exchange ideas, laying the foundation stone for the common vision of the WSIS.

For us, building confidence and trust in the use of ICTs is key to developing an inclusive information society. First of all, we strongly believe that implementing the WSIS outcomes and reinforcing trust in the Internet and digital technologies has been greatly facilitated by multistakeholder cooperation in both the development of Internet technical standards and policy discussions. For that reason, AFNIC is actively involved in local and global Internet governance and in the development of new standards and in research.

We would like to highlight the work carried out by the ICANN and ICANN community in terms of policy development and fostering trust in the DNS and the Internet as a whole, as well as the sharing of best practices and expertise. Similarly, standard developing organizations, first of which the Internet Engineering Task Force, are key to shaping the future of the Internet.

For us, key factor for success is an approach based on continuous improvement and consensus-driven processes allowed for the development of a robust and stable Internet. It must include the implementation of security and data protection by design, the development of interoperable open standards such as DNS of HTTPS, DNSSEC, DKIM, DMARC, and so many more. future-proof standard considering post-quantum.

The multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance has been instrumental in the past 20 years to keep the underlying Internet infrastructure open, resilient, interoperable, and trustworthy. And we believe that strengthening cooperation and the diversity of participation from a wide range of stakeholders is essential if we are to find innovative and sustainable solution to the emerging problem we face. We believe that this should remain a key priority in the Zero Draft.

As a result, we would like to stress the need to explicitly identify and mention the technical community and academia as key stakeholders in the Zero Draft. And finally, we would like to reiterate the importance of bridging the digital divide in all its forms in order to strengthen trust and accessibility of the Internet. This includes strengthening of cultural and linguistic diversity online. The divides and trust are intertwined and require greater consideration of the local context. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Lucien, for your contribution. Now, on my list, I have the representative from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of India. I just want to check if Mr. Santosh is online. If this is not the case, then I would like to invite Desiree Milosevic from RIZO IP European Network Coordination Center. Desiree, the floor is yours. I have the confirmation that Desiree is online.

She needs to accept the invitation that has been done by the secretariat to be as a panelist. But if Desiree has some issue to connect, then we need to move on. And I would like to invite Pablo Hinojosa, consultant, to take the floor. Pablo, the floor is yours.

Pablo Hinojosa
Thank you, Your Excellency, Madam Chair, esteemed colleagues. I speak today as a longstanding member of the technical community in close partnership with the operational and private sector actors who keep the Internet secure, resilient, and open. I want to focus my remarks on the WSIS Action Line C5 on building confidence and security in the use of ICTs. From racing awareness to enabling global cooperation. Its goal remains clear.

It is to ensure that all stakeholders, especially from developing regions, can participate in and benefit from a safe and trusted digital environment. As we approach WSIS plus 20, I would like first to ensure that international norms and frameworks, and here I am talking about, yes, WSIS, but also the OEWG for example, that these norms translate into practical implementation. Global agreements only build confidence when they respond to operational needs.

The second part that I would like to focus on is that we must commit to equitable and efficient capacity building without requiring new budgets. It is entirely possible to do better with what we have by empowering local solutions, using proven models, and leveraging peer-to-peer learning.

One strong example that I would like to flag is the Women in Cyber Fellowship implemented by the GFCE during the OEWG process, which not only builds cybersecurity capacity but helps to address long-standing gender imbalances in the field. These are the kinds of sustainable, inclusive models we must scale to close both development and gender gaps in every region, and it could be great to do similar things in the WSIS process moving forward after its 20th anniversary.

The third thing that I would like is that confidence and security must be understood through the lens of resilience. In my recent work, I’ve explored how internet resilience, technical, institutional, and human, is the bedrock of trust. It’s not just about preventing attacks but about withstanding and recovering from them. That’s where multistakeholderism becomes more than a principle or a narrative. It is a necessity.

As highlighted in the WSIS consultations and many of my colleagues before me, an enabling environment is one where collaboration, transparency, and shared responsibility thrive. In closing, with this post 20 is not only a time to reflect, but to realign, let’s reinforce C5 as a hope for implementation connection to the operational reality. Let’s back sustainable capacity building and multi stakeholder resilience. Thank you very kindly for this opportunity.

Suela Janina
Thank you very much, Pablo for your intervention and your contribution. Now I would like to ask Desiree to take the floor. I see you Desiree and hope to hear you so the floor is yours.

Desiree Milosevic
Thank you very much, Your Excellencies. Just to mention and focus on a couple of things.

We will like to say that RIPE NCC has already submitted their written response so I’ll make a short intervention about the existing challenges that persist. And primarily here we’re thinking about the progress, despite the progress that has been made over the last two decades, we must recognize that the digital divide remains a persistent and pressing challenge. So, we would like to make a statement that remote areas and particularly for women and girls.

And it should be taken into account when reviewing the WSIS line. However, the scaled up investment in infrastructure and capacity building and digital literacy is urgently needed to ensure this meaningful and affordable connectivity for all. One more thing is that we really need to acknowledge that public private partnerships alone are not enough, and that achieving the lasting progress requires the active participation of a broader set of stakeholders including the technical community, civil society and local actors who each bring their valuable perspectives. A second challenge we’d like to draw attention to is the lack of clear implementation and follow up mechanisms.

Too many member states are yet to fully integrate the WISN action lines into their national strategies and this is often due to the absence of clear targets, coordination and accountability and embedding the implementation of the global digital compact within the WSIS framework through an exclusive and transparent mechanism would then strengthen the coherence and improve global outcomes. Thirdly, we must safeguard the global internet as an open, interoperable and secure platform.

Its core architecture must be preserved if we are to meet the sustainable development goals and advance inclusive development. The work of technical organisations such as the RIPE NCC in areas like IPv6 deployment and routing security shows how multi-stakeholder collaboration can strengthen resilience through community driven capacity building but also via partnerships.

Looking forward, our top priorities must include renewed global attention on bridging the digital divide while preparing for emerging technologies and reaffirming and aligning the WSIS action lines with the sustainable digital development goals. A permanent, well-resourced IEGF mandate that fully leverages and recognises the work of NRIs and recognition of the internet’s layered architecture in policy. and policymaking, and lastly, develop collaboration between technical experts and governments to ensure digital governance is evidence based and future proof. Thank you for your time.

Suela Janina
Thank you very much Desiree for your contribution. Now, we have a few colleagues that couldn’t manage to connect while their names was called as the list of the speakers. So some of them have already joined and I would like that those that have joined and are now able to connect that were on the list to raise their hand, and we’ll give you the floor. So I see Rosalia Morales. Rosalia I give you the floor. Yes Rosalia, you can continue, we hear you.

Rosalia Morales
Good morning Chair, co-facilitators, all. I’m speaking on behalf of the Technical Community Coalition for Mr. Stakeholderism, a group of aligned members of the internet technical community with a long history of involvement in multi-stakeholder internet governance. Our role as members of the internet technical community is to operate the infrastructure that supports the internet’s core functionality.

An open, global, secure, resilient, interoperable internet is a crucial foundation for human development, innovation and progress. We appreciate the opportunity to participate in this stakeholder consultation to offer our contributions to the elements paper, and notary thanks to the President of the General Rosalia, we lost you. Do you hear us? I’m sorry about this interruption. Can you hear me now? I got the panel. Yes, you can continue. Okay.

We appreciate the opportunity to participate in this stakeholder consultation to offer contributions to the elements paper, and notary thanks to the President of the General Assembly, the co-facilitators, and to the Secretariat for their work thus far in the review process. Specific to internet governance aspects of the elements paper, we urge member states to support a permanent mandate for the IGF. The TCCM supports a mandate of the IGF being permanent.

This will support all stakeholders to invest in its improvement and development and to drive improved participation from stakeholders and communities currently underrepresented, including those in the global south. A federal draft should call on member states and all stakeholders to provide stable and sufficient and human financial resources for the IGF, including Secretariat to strengthen its reach and impact and to drive improved participation.

Fundamentally, we also advocate for diversified funding approach to ensure sustainable, robust funding and appropriate support by multi-stakeholder community. This will help ensure that the diverse voices represented present in the IGF system can have the most impact on realizing the WSIS vision.

As recognized by the Global Digital Compact, the IGF represents a unique platform that does not exist elsewhere for the enhanced cooperation of all stakeholders that will be necessary as we continue to build an inclusive, people-centered, and development-oriented information society.

The existing WSIS infrastructure, including the WSIS Forum and the IGF, along with the IGF ecosystem of intersessional work and the national and regional IGF initiatives, continue to be the logical and established venues for centering implementation and follow-up of all outputs that impact internet governance and digital policy processes.

They demonstrate the multi-stakeholder cooperation that has been the hallmark feature that has fostered energy and progress around sustainable development, the information society, and increased access to the societal benefits technology and the internet enabled. The TCCM members believe that cooperation between governments and other stakeholders remains the best way to engage to support the internet and digital technologies that are critical to building inclusive, resilient societies.

Multi-stakeholder processes will best support the WSIS vision and promote an inclusive, open, sustainable, fair, safe, and secure digital future for all. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute in this important process.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Rosalia. Just I want to clarify that we would like first to hear from those colleagues that couldn’t connect under the topics that we have already discussed. And I ask for the patience of those that will be able to connect to contribute under the internet governance for a few moments, so we’ll try to accommodate those that are online and ask for the floor in relation with the first themes of discussion. So maybe I can ask for Mr. Eqram Mustaqeem, if he’s online, to take the floor. If this is not the case, then Mr. Joseph Lea Nkwaluo. Mr. Wisdom Ginassa from Wistec Engineering.

I’ve been advised that those people are online that would like to connect, but if they are not able, then we need to move. Mr. Abdeldjalil Bachar Bong, are you online? So it seems that we have exhausted the list of the speakers. Yes. Abdeldjalil , okay, you are online, the floor is yours. We are trying to accommodate everyone, so please take good use of your three minutes.

Abdeldjalil Bachar Bong
Okay, thank you so much, Your Excellency. Thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of House of Africa, a dedicated member of civil society stakeholder community, here based in Chad. So thank you so much for the WSIS 20 review element paper, for your offer that you put it on that, and coming on the initiative of breaking the digital divide, I think that is very key, and thank you for putting this in the element paper.

I think that the digital, breaking digital divide must remain a central focus, as you said, and while we not only expand the infrastructure, but also focus on people. capacity building. I think that is very key. So, we have some element of recommendation also. So, as I say that the capacity digital, building capacity, digital capacity and skills.

As you know, as we are coming from developing countries and coming from Africa, so we need to have a lot of more capacity building because people is growing. We use a lot of mobile phone payment, everything. So, we need more capacity building on that and focus on rural area and marginalized people, men, women, people living with a disability. I think that is very key. And also reduces the cost of internet, access to internet.

I think that is very key for our rural area and coming from developing countries because the cost is very high. So, we need to work on that because if the cost is very high, so we cannot talk about connectivity because they divide it. You have two kinds of work, so connected and unconnected.

Also, I think that the local content and multilingual resources, I think that someone from our colleague from France talked about this because we need to have a lot of resources in the local languages. I think that is very key. So, to promote this kind of creation of content. So, I think that is very key. And also, supporting environmental and sustainable digital growth is very key also.

And also, we don’t need to forget addressing social and cultural barriers. So, it’s very key also. And at the end, I think that we need to remind also the key role of IGF. So, to have the permanent mandate is very key and to have a sustainable funding also because to close this gap and also we need to remind about our political holder guideline can serve as a valuable reference for fostering such inclusivity and also you don’t need to forget also the role that plays the NRIs so I think that NRIs can play a big role on that so thank you so much excellencies.

Suela Janina
Thank you Mr. Bong and with this we conclude this part of the consultations and I would like now to hand over to my colleague Ambassador Lokaale to continue with the next topic on internet governance. As you understand we are continuing without interruption in order to allow as many speakers as we can at this point. Ambassador Lokaale I hand over to you. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much Ambassador Janina and thank you everyone for the very active participation in the consultations this morning. Without wasting much time I’ll go straight to invite the speakers for the second topic I mean for the next topic that is the topic on internet governance and for my list I would like to give the floor to Meline Svadjian from the Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations. You have the floor Meline.

Meline Svadjian
Thank you your excellency and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I am delivering this statement on behalf of both Australia and my own country Canada. I would like to highlight four key elements that we see as fundamental to the WSIS plus 20 process. First we believe it is essential that the zero draft reaffirm that internet governance remains global and multi-stakeholder in nature.

The private sector, civil society, the technical community and academia all bring unique contributions, and the participation of all their voices are necessary to ensure inclusive and effective governance. Moreover, the Zero Draft should clearly reference the Sao Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines, which provide practical and widely supported approaches to improving multi-stakeholder participation. The guidelines reflect a shared commitment by a diverse group of countries and stakeholders, including from the Global South.

Second, the Zero Draft should reaffirm a strong and enduring mandate for the IGF. The IGF has fostered inclusive, transparent, and constructive engagement among stakeholders. The national and regional initiatives that it developed ground IGF principles and processes closer to communities, ensuring that global discussions are rooted in regional realities. We believe that the IGF’s renewal in 2025 should be recognized as a pivotal outcome, one that affirms its value in shaping the future of global internet governance.

Third, we strongly support the inclusion of a dedicated section on human rights. The recognition that the same rights people have offline must also be protected, promoted, and fulfilled online is fundamental. We recommend that the preamble of the Zero Draft explicitly recognize human rights as a cross-cutting issue, grounded in international law, including international human rights law.

We also advocate for a formal role for OHCHR in the WSIS process, including through its advisory service on human rights in the digital space. Finally, we acknowledge the significance of AI and data governance. We must avoid duplicating the work of the GDC and related initiatives. As these are areas inherently complex and rapidly evolving, we believe that existing commitments on these issues should be reinforced, reinforced. rather than reopened.

Australia and Canada look forward to continuing our engagement to shape the next chapter of our shared digital future. Thank you for the time.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you, Meline, for your contribution. I now give the floor to Konstantinos Komaitis from the Atlantic Council. You have the floor, Konstantinos.

Konstantinos Komaitis
Thank you. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Konstantinos Komaitis. I am a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Democracy and Tech Initiative where I work on global governance. Today, I speak to you in my personal capacity. Let me start by thanking Ambassadors Janina and Lokaale. This session reflects what good governance looks like, inclusive, participatory, and grounded in dialogue. 20 years ago, the World Summit on the Information Society captured lightning in a bottle. It envisioned an internet centered on people grounded in rights and built through collaboration.

That vision still matters, perhaps now more than ever. As we revisit WSIS two decades on, there are two urgent truths we must confront. First, the link between the internet and development is no longer aspirational, it’s foundational. Connectivity drives education, health, governance, and economic growth, but the digital divide remains a global fault line. Billions are still offline. Closing that gap isn’t charity, it’s a development imperative. Second, no single actor can do this alone.

Back in 2005, your governments had the foresight to embrace the multi-stakeholder model, bringing government, civil society, the private sector, and the technical community together. That model isn’t a talking point. It’s the engine that empowers a healthy internet. Paragraph 34 of the Tunis Agenda must stand. Governments have a key role, but governance is a monopoly.

Enhanced cooperation must be seen as dynamic, not confined to UN corridors, but happening across coalitions like the Freedom Online Coalition, at ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee, and in national and regional IGFs amongst many other places. The internet’s strength lies in its diversity of voices. Let’s not silence them. That brings me to the IGF. We don’t just need to renew it, we need to strengthen it.

We need to make it permanent, funded, and support its regional and national iterations. The IGF is where we contest competing visions, open versus control, global versus fragmented. It’s not just a forum, it’s a frontline. The future of the internet hinges on our ability to uphold human rights online. Access to information, privacy, free expression, the right to participate in the digital economy. These are not abstract ideals. They are preconditions for innovation, equity, and democracy.

Ignore them, and the internet becomes a tool for surveillance, exclusion, and control. Twenty years ago, we promised a people-centered information society. Today, that promise is being tested. I urge you to reaffirm it with courage, with clarity, and with commitment. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Konstantinos. Now I would like to give the floor to Daphné Barbotte from the EU delegation to the UN. You have the floor.

Daphné Barbotte
Thank you very much, Ambassador. I have the honor to speak on behalf of the European Union and its member states. And first of all, let me thank the co-facilitators for the elements paper and for organizing this joint consultation. We welcome your efforts in ensuring an inclusive process, be it through consultations such as today, as well as during the coming days. during recent forums, and the creation of the Informal Multi-Stakeholders Founding Board.

The EU submitted an input in writing for your consideration as you prepared the zero-draft of the WSIS plus 20 review outcome document. We also submitted three non-papers to 1. Develop the proposed WSIS-SDG-GDC roadmaps, 2. Align digital transformation with human rights, and 3. Strengthen the Internet Governance Forum. Today, I would like to highlight our proposals to strengthen the IGF for a forward-looking, inclusive and multi-stakeholder Internet governance.

The IGF continues to stand as a cornerstone of the multi-stakeholder model, offering a unique and inclusive platform where all stakeholders come together to address digital governance challenges transparently and collaboratively. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Norway for hosting the annual IGF last month. The EU and its Member States reaffirmed their strong support for the IGF’s mandates as established in the Tunis Agenda, and recognized its pivotal role in shaping global digital policy.

Yet, in the face of rapid technological change and widening digital divide, the IGF must evolve. The upcoming review presents a critical opportunity to strengthen the IGF’s structure, enhance its financial sustainability, and increase the impact of its outcome. To ensure long-term stability, the EU proposes the permanent institutionalization of the IGF within the United Nations system, maintaining its home in UN defense.

We also advocate for sustainable funding through the UN Regular Budget via reallocation of existing funds, complemented by voluntary contributions. And we also propose the appointment of a dedicated IGF Secretariat Director to ensure follow-up and coordination across digital governance initiatives. This representation is key. The EU also calls for greater inclusion of representatives from developing countries and marginalized groups, supported by targeted financial assistance.

We also support strengthening national, regional, and youth IGF initiatives to ensure grassroots voices are heard and integrated. To enhance policy impact, we propose reinforcing multi-year thematic tracks and ensuring IGF conclusions are systematically linked to the WSIS Action Line. This would create a feedback loop where IGF outcomes inform WSIS processes, and vice versa, fostering coherence and continuity. Finally, to address emerging challenges and prevent Internet fragmentation, the EU proposes the creation of multi-stakeholder governance labs within the IGF.

These labs would serve as collaborative spaces where diverse stakeholders can explore the implications of emerging technologies, build on existing IGF structures, and co-create innovative, inclusive solutions. They would also attract new voices, especially youth and experts from developing regions, ensuring the IGF remains forward-looking and globally representative. In sum, the EU envisions a stronger, more impactful IGF, one that is inclusive, sustainable, and equipped to meet the challenges of the digital age. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
I thank the representative of the EU to the UN. I now give the floor to Nick Ashton-Hart from APCO Worldwide. Nick, you have the floor. Nick Ashton Hart: Good morning, Excellencies, colleagues, ladies, and gentlemen. It’s a pleasure to speak on behalf of APCO Worldwide today and to hear views from so many stakeholders globally.

At the outset, we’d like to associate ourselves with the comments you’ve heard today from the AFICTA, CCIA, GSMA, ICC, Microsoft, and USCIB, as well as those of Canada and Australia just a few moments ago. We thank the co-facilitators for the collaborative process that they’re enabling and UNDESA’s efforts to facilitate it.

A key question the review must answer is how internet governance processes can support holistic accelerated delivery on development outcomes, recognizing that the discussion of governance unmoored from such outcomes have limited value. One way is to improve coordination between the three main pillars of WSIS, the Internet Governance Forum, the WSIS Forum, and the Commission on Science and Technology for Development.

These each have complementary strengths, multi-stakeholder engagement and collaboration at the IGF, coordination of implementation of the Action Line. at the WSIS Forum and Intergovernmental Policy Outcomes and WSIS Implementation Monitoring at CSTD. With increased coordination between their respective secretariats, the work done in each could be leveraged more effectively, creating a positive feedback loop that increases the value of all three.

We also need to make it easier for developing countries to access resources for capacity building and technical assistance and increase synergies between funders to multiply the development value of their programs. The zero draft should endorse greater participation by the Bretton Woods Institutions, regional development banks and other international financing mechanisms in the WSIS process. Across these institutions, there are enormous resources available, but they are not always easy to find or to access.

More engagement by these stakeholders could help with that and facilitate synergies between programs to the benefit of development outcomes. In the same vein, the zero draft should recognize how deployment of universal service funds for connecting the unconnected can be leveraged using best practices as mentioned by the UK. Thank you for your kind attention.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you, Nick, for your contribution. I now give the floor to Titti Cassa from the Agency for Digital Italy. Titti, the floor.

Titti Cassa
Thank you, Ambassador Lokaale for giving me the floor. My name is Titti Cassa and I work at the Agency for Digital Italy, and I’m speaking in my personal capacity. First of all, let me begin by thanking the co-facilitator, the Ambassador of Kenya and Albania and UNDESA for organizing this important multi-stakeholder consultation.

The WSIS Plus 20 review offers a timely opportunity to reflect on how we can strengthen digital governance, making it more coherent, inclusive and effective for the future. Over the past two decades, the WSIS process has led a solid foundation for global digital cooperation. It has advanced people-centered vision, anchored to a multi-stakeholder dialogue.

And one of its most significant achievement is without doubt the IGF, which has become a key platform for addressing a wide range of digital policy issues. The IGF has proven itself to be a vital or open and global platform for inclusive and constructive exchange. Its international work, including the NRIs, the Dynamic Coalition, the Policy Network, brings grassroots perspective and innovative idea from around the world. And despite of these achievements, the digital governance remain fragmented.

In fact, there are key initiative like the WSIS, the Global Digital Compact and the SDG, sometime operating parallel with limited coordination. And this could lead to duplication and inefficiencies, particularly for countries with limited resources. And to address this, we must move from coordination in principle to coordination in practice. The IGF ecosystem is well positioned to act as a bridge across WSIS action line, GDC priority and the SDG and the broader UN digital policy landscape.

The architecture of the IGF is already in place. What is needed now is reinforcement and formal recognition. With that in mind, I’d like to propose a few concrete steps. First, the IGF should be established as permanent and well-resourced platform within UN system. This includes strengthening the secretariat and expanding its structure with dedicated liaison roles to foster coordination amongst stakeholders, UN entities and potentially a new, including also a new government track inside the IGF.

Second, I think we need a greater integration between WSIS, GDC and the IGF through shared roadmaps, regular coordination mechanism and aligned follow-up processes. Third, inclusivity must remain a central priority. This means enabling multilingual participation, amplified gender and youth voices and ensuring representation from underrepresented region and also community. Fourth, the WSIS currently lacks a robust mechanism to track progress.

The WSIS framework, I mean, the evolution should introduce a clear targets and indicator for action line, annual reporting and dependent evaluation, inclusive mechanisms for stakeholder feedbacks. National and regional IGF will play a role in this context in gathering implementation data and presenting findings during its IGF meetings. In addition, I believe the IGF should assume a more strategic role in shaping the global digital agenda.

As I think it should serve as a space, not only for dialogue, but also for promoting outcome implementation, supported by mechanism for growth progress, monitoring and accountability. One possible approach I will suggest is the IGF to be able to launch a bottom-up process after the annual IGF meeting to develop concrete goals to action, grounded in the IGF messages and addressed to government, UN agencies and all stakeholders.

In short, the IGF already function as a living infrastructural digital corporation. Now is the time to invest in its evolution so it can fully support a digital future that is open, inclusive and responsive. to global needs.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you, Titti, for your contribution. I’ll now give the floor to William Drake from the Columbia Institute for Teleinformation.

And perhaps at this point request subsequent contributors to please stick to your time allocation so that everyone gets their time. William, you have the floor.

William Drake
Thank you to the co-organizers for this opportunity. It’s really great to see some government representatives here alongside the stakeholders. It would be even better if we had the opportunity to actually interact with each other as we did throughout the WSIS preparatory process 20 years ago.

I’m sure all of us who were involved then have memories of useful dialogues between government and stakeholder representatives that helped to clarify key issues on how the internet worked and how its governance did and did not work and so on, which fostered some convergence in thinking. So anything that we’ve done to approximate that level of interactivity in the time that remains in this review would be really helpful.

I’d like to speak to the language on enhanced cooperation and internet governance and express a concern about the potential risks of this language in the particular context of today’s hyper-polarized geopolitical environment and UN budgetary challenges. In Tunis, this purposely ambiguous language on enhanced cooperation helped various parties to declare victory and go home. So it seemed like a clever solution.

Unfortunately, in subsequent years, we never managed to reach any consensus on a definition of what enhanced cooperation actually means. This is a sharp contrast to what we did in the working group on internet governance when we put forward a definition of internet governance that addressed the who, what, and how of internet governance, and this helped to tone down the debate about internet governance in the WSIS that has been invoked ever since.

Absent a shared understanding of the who, what, and how, enhanced cooperation has become a lightning rod for deep geopolitical differences that are stretched across the WSIS review processes and the two failed working groups in enhanced cooperation. Three different kinds of perspectives have been prominent. There are those who think it’s a multi-stakeholder initiative. There are those who say, no, it’s a purely intergovernmental process to enable governments to participate on an equal footing in existing organizations or processes.

And then there’s some who say it’s actually a mandate somehow to create a new intergovernmental organization that have a broad authority over the internet. Given this history in the current geopolitical context, foregrounding enhanced cooperation again could lead to even greater division and deadlock than it did in the past and could give some parties grounds to disown the WSIS process more generally.

Anything that can be portrayed as a mandate to debate creating a new intergovernmental organization or binding agreement could be even more unacceptable to some countries and parties than in the past. I think a simple solution here to avoid such difficulties would be for governments who are advocating enhanced cooperation to make clear that a new intergovernmental organization is not what they have in mind. We’re not in Tunis anymore and ambiguity on this issue is no longer strategic.

So let’s all just say what we mean by enhanced cooperation and what it is we want to mandate to do. After all, there’s been evolution in the positions of some key governments since we had the last debates on this stuff. And it’s possible that we could avoid some serious conflicts that would debilitate the whole process by simply being clear about what the ask is here.

So my suggestion is to try to avoid a circumstance where there is gonna be a breakdown in cooperation and people talking about walking away and so on because they think that there’s something problematic. Let’s just be clear about what we’re advocating. And if it’s simply to help developing country voices get louder, great. Let’s do that. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you, William Drake, for your contribution. And I’ll give the floor to Claire-Sophie Patzig from the Youth IGF Germany. You have the floor.

Claire Sophie Patzig
Excellencies, first of all, thank you so much for the possibility to contribute. And after so many statements, I will try to keep it brief. I’m honored to present a joint statement on behalf of the German Youth IGF, which has been endorsed by over 100 national. regional initiatives, civil society organizations, and ISOC chapters from all parts of the world.

This collective effort reflects our shared commitment to an open, free, global, inclusive, and interoperable Internet. We highlight in particular the essential role of NRIs as a core pillar of global Internet governance. Whether national, regional, or youth-led, NRIs embody the multi-stakeholder spirit by facilitating inclusive participation, promoting local dialogue, and driving capacity building. Regardless of broader governance frameworks, it is ultimately at the local level, where infrastructures develop and policies are implemented.

Their work bridges global vision with local realities. And this is the true strength of the multi-stakeholder model. It transforms ideas into action and ensures that a broad diversity of voices shapes our digital future.

To support this vision, we call for the recognition of NRIs as a foundational component of global Internet governance, the continued strengthening of the multi-stakeholder model at all levels, a permanent and sustainably funded mandate of the Internet Governance Forum, and the safeguarding of technological neutrality in governance processes. Thank you for your attention, and we are committed to contribute further to the Business Plus 20 review.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Claire, Sophie, for your contributions.

I understand Emmanuel and Charles are not there, so now we would like to move to the next topic that’s on data governance and give the floor to Pascal Bekono from the Cameroon Ministry of Justice. Pascal, if you are there, you have the floor.

Pascal Bekono
Yes, thank you very much. Yes, my speech will be on data governance. We want to say that regulatory mechanisms for data governance are being adopted by each region of the world.

In the face of artificial intelligence and other innovations, the least developed countries are lagging behind in terms of implementation. So, while we are affirming data rights, unequal access to technological innovation and control mechanisms around the world make it increasingly important to focus on several areas. To this end, we maintain that the World Summit on Information Society’s stakeholder approach, as well as the IGF, should continue to facilitate inclusive dialogue towards the adoption of common data governance policies.

We reaffirm that the mutual stakeholder approach must guarantee the protections of citizens’ rights in the face of innovative technologies. And we support the harmonisation of regulatory policy on data governance in some regions of the world, and to have some control mechanisms in terms of agency, a strong one. And more importantly also, to have capacity building for least developed countries should be really promoted.

And we believe it’s important to establish a global data regulatory body to guarantee equitable access and fair protection for citizens against violation and abuse. Thank you very much. This is what we can share with others. Thank you very much.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Pascal Bekono, for your contribution. give the floor to Liz Orembo. Liz, are you there? Liz Orembo from Research ICT Africa. If Liz is not there, then I give the floor to Jacqueline Pigatto from Data Privacy Brazil. Jacqueline, you have the floor.

Jacqueline Pigatto
Thank you so much, co-facilitators, for this opportunity. I speak on behalf of Data Privacy Brazil, a Brazilian NGO that is part of the Global Digital Rights Coalition for WISIS, the Global Digital Justice Forum, and the Global South Alliance.

We would like to highlight the need to approach data governance through a data justice lens, looking beyond privacy to consider the broader human rights implications of how personal data is collected, shared, and used. This includes the impacts on the rights to social protection, decent work, education, and health. For that reason, data governance should be seen as a cross-cutting issue across multiple WISIS action lines and its whole architecture.

Another critical point is the need to strike a better balance between security, especially in terms of surveillance, and the protection of human rights. In many cases, these areas are being addressed in silos, and we believe that a human rights-based approach to data governance can help reconcile these tensions. We call attention to the role of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which is a member of the CSTD Working Group on Data Governance.

Their participation can be particularly valuable in discussions around human rights impacts through data, interoperability, and the establishment of global data standards that are aligned with human rights. This would bring the Working Group closer to the WISIS framework and action lines. And finally, we call for more investments in statistical data that can be ethically and accurately used for public policy purposes.

These data systems must also be interoperable to foster international cooperation, especially in areas aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals and the WISIS action lines.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Jacqueline Pigatto, for your contribution. I believe that was the last speaker under the topic on data governance. We now move to the next topic on artificial intelligence, and I would like to give the floor to Abdulkarim Oloyede from the University of Ilorin, Nigeria.

Abdulkarim, if you are there, you have the floor. If Abdulkarim is not there, I think let’s have Gabriel Delsol from the Computer and Communications Industry Association. Gabriel, you have the floor.

Gabriel Delsol
Thank you, co-facilitators, excellencies, and distinguished I’m Gabriel Del Sol from the Computer and Communications Industry Association, or CCIA, an international non-profit membership organization representing companies in the computer, internet, information technology, and telecommunications industries.

We welcome the opportunity today to comment on the elements paper for the WSIS Review, and I also welcome the comments from several of my colleagues on the call today and want to endorse those of the International Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Council on International Business, the GSM Association, Microsoft, APCO, and the Africa ICT Alliance.

CCIA has submitted written comments in response to the request for input, so I’ll focus my comments today on the section on AI, paragraphs 70-76, highlighting how to best harness the innovative potential of AI to support the goals of the WSIS process.

First, specific to the WSIS Review itself, CCIA recommends that the Review engage on AI through existing mechanisms to avoid duplication and potential friction, and in recognizing the cross-cutting application of AI technologies across a diverse array of sectors, discussions of AI should proceed through existing action lines instead of a new dedicated action line. Second, the WSIS Review should recognize and build upon existing efforts within the UN to engage on AI and bolstering those where particular.

Especially, the process should support and defer to the outcomes under the Global Digital Compact, namely the proposed scientific panel and the Global Dialogue on AI, which remain under development and do not require additional direction from the WSIS Review, as well as the recent resolutions passed through the General Assembly on this topic.

Third, we recognize the importance of the UN engaging on AI given its transformative potential to promote development and innovation, and we view the role of the UN as a facilitating agent in line with the vision established in the Global Digital Compact’s paragraph 54 on the UN, which specifies its role in enabling and supporting agile multi-stakeholder approaches to AI governance.

The UN is therefore best served as a forum for convening and information sharing, rather than prescribing specific governance mechanisms which are ill-adapted to the diverse applications of AI and the need for context-specific approaches in diverse environments. As such, we recommend that the UN engage on AI, that paragraph 73 and the element paper and future such characterizations of the UN role avoid referencing it as essential to shaping AI governance and allow for greater flexibility in line with the vision outlined in the global digital compact. Thank you again for the opportunity to provide input on this process and we look forward to continuing to engage throughout the drafting process. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much Gabriel for your contribution. I now give the floor to Paloma Lara Castro from Derechos Digitales. Paloma.

Paloma Lara Castro
Thank you Ambassador. I’m representing Derechos Digitales. We are also part of the Global Digital Justice Forum, the WSIS Coalition and the Gender Coalition which has presented inputs on this matter. I will be delivering this statement with a focus on AI from a global south and gender just perspective.

AI is reshaping the global digital ecosystem yet it does so within an architecture that reflects and reinforces long-standing asymmetries. This is especially concerning considering the accelerated use of AI in public policy which calls for states human right compliance oversight and strict limitation of usage. Additionally the concentration of AI development in a few global north countries and corporations is generating new forms of colonialism.

Data extraction, algorithm bias and the centralization of data infrastructure mirrors historical patterns of dependency. Digital sovereignty requires not just access to technology but community ownership and control over data and means of digital production. We urge WSIS plus 20 to promote gender-based and decolonial approaches to data and AI governance. This must prioritize collective rights, community stewardship and public value over destructive business models.

The serial draft should go further in recognizing the excessive concentration of power in dominant technology corporations and mandate accountability frameworks for the private sector aligned with the UN guiding principles on business and human rights, ensuring transparency, independent algorithm oversight and redress. In addition WSIS must expand its understanding of harm in AI system beyond the scope of individual privacy.

Systemic harms such as invisibility, under-representation and discrimination must be addressed and disclose guidelines for AI models including data sources, architectures and deployment. must be mandated to enable independent auditing. A gender lens is central. Mandatory gender impact assessments conducted before deployment must be instituted for all AI systems to ensure meaningful participation and robust gender analysis in design and governance. The impacts of AI are profoundly social.

TFGBV, including through deepfakes, surveillance tours, and targeted disinformation, must be addressed as a human rights issue. Responses must be grounded in legality, necessity, and proportionality, while centering the experiences of victims and survivors. We caution against relying solely on punitive measures. Instead, strategies must be multifaceted, rights-based, and tackle root causes. We also call for institutional mechanisms to monitor implementation.

The STD should be mandated through ECOSOC to review progress annually on GDC tracks on data and AI, taking forward recommendations for the forthcoming Working Group on Data Governance. This review should also host the proposed global dialogue on AI governance and advance discussions on technology foresight through the International Scientific Panel on AI. Finally, we stress that inclusive digital governance requires representation and tailored strategies.

A standalone action line on gender and gender mainstreaming across all WSIS actions are essential to advancing gender-just and equitable digital futures. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Paloma, for your contributions. I now give the floor to Laura O’Brien from Access Now. Laura, you have the floor.

Laura O’Brien
Thank you. Excellencies, colleagues, thank you for this opportunity to contribute to the WSIS Plus 20 informal consultation.

We particularly thank the co-facilitators for holding this space for all stakeholders to convene. Access Now is a grassroots-to-global civil society organization working on the intersection of technology and human rights. We are also a member of the Global Digital Rights Coalition for WSIS and endorse the initiatives delivered by the coalition to date.

Deploying artificial intelligence and automated decision-making without adequate safety guards can facilitate human rights violations, exacerbate existing social power imbalances, and create new risks such as AI-powered surveillance and biometric and behavioral profiling, all which disproportionately affect marginalized people and communities. We therefore make the following four recommendations with respect to the Zero Draft.

First and foremost, the Zero Draft must be grounded in international human rights law and standards, including explicit references to the International Bill of Rights, thematic human rights treaties, and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The Zero Draft should reaffirm and create a formal role of the OHCHR, who has led research and initiatives at the intersection of technology and human rights, including on artificial intelligence, for over a decade.

Second, the Zero Draft should reaffirm that any interference with the right to privacy must be strictly necessary and proportionate, prescribed by law, and undertaken in pursuit of a legitimate aim. Third, the Zero Draft should reassert the responsibilities of the private sector to respect human rights and to conduct human rights impact and human rights due diligence assessments throughout the technology lifecycle.

Building on the precedent found in the first UN General Assembly resolution solely dedicated to artificial intelligence, the Zero Draft should call on states and other stakeholders to refrain from or cease the use of artificial intelligence systems that are impossible to operate in compliance with international human rights law or that pose undue risks to the enjoyment of human rights. Finally, we underscore the need to avoid duplication, particularly regarding global initiatives on AI governance.

The Zero Draft should recognize that the mandate of the IGF has evolved into the world’s most inclusive forum for broader digital governance. We therefore echo various calls today from both governments and other stakeholders to institutionalize the IGF as a permanent structure with dedicated and sustained funding. The continued existence stability of the IGF is crucial for its future as a multi-stakeholder platform which bridges stakeholder communities and regions and connects different internet and digital policy processes. In conclusion, we revert your attention to our written contribution. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Laura, for that contribution. I think that was the last speaker under the topic of artificial from the confirmed list. I now request that we move on to topic on capacity building, and I would like to give the floor to Christian, I believe. Yes. Christian, very nice to see you, from the permanent mission of Switzerland to the UN. Christian, you have the floor.

Christian Schlaepfer
Thank you very much, Ambassador. Glad to be here, and thank you for organizing this session. We have already shared a number of detailed comments in writing with you, so I’ll limit my intervention here in more high-level points, and apologies if I go a little bit beyond the topic of capacity building here.

But let me start by expressing my delegation’s sincere gratitude also to you, co-facilitators, for your steadfast leadership in guiding the WSIS process, and your commitment to transparency and inclusivity, exemplified also by the establishment of the Multistakeholder Sounding Board, has been instrumental in fostering trust and collaboration amongst all stakeholders, and we encourage you to continue in that same vein.

As we approach this critical milestone, we believe that WSIS Plus 20 outcome document must reaffirm the enduring vision of a people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society, while also aligning with newer ambitions, such as the Global Digital Compact. Twenty years after the original summit, we recognize the profound progress made in connecting communities, advancing digital cooperation, and leveraging technologies for sustainable development.

We must also confront new challenges, from artificial intelligence to deepening digital divides, with the same spirit of multistakeholder solidarity that defined WSIS. To ensure a focused and productive review, we underscored the importance of building an established consensus. Rather than relitigating settled issues, we should reaffirm the foundational outcomes of WSIS, WSIS Plus 20, and the GDC, drawing, where appropriate, on agreed landmarks.

language from relevant UN resolutions, substantive discussions or to prioritise emerging challenges and opportunities not fully addressed in early frameworks, ensuring WSIS plus 20 remains both forward-looking and actionable. And implementation must be our shared priority. Strengthening the WSIS framework will require revitalised mechanisms, such as an updated ANGIS, a more strategic role for the CSTD and the IGF, mentioned many times in earlier interventions, as well as streamlined WSIS forum focused on tangible outcomes.

We further propose exploring practical tools like a WSIS helpdesk to support capacity building. By avoiding duplication and fostering system-wide coherence, we can translate principles into measurable progress, which is why we joined the CSTD call for joint implementation roadmap to harmonise GDC commitments into WSIS architecture, as it has also been confirmed just this morning by the ECOSOC. And many of my colleagues have also mentioned this idea.

So in closing, we urge all delegations to approach WSIS plus 20 with ambition and flexibility. And we hope we can deliver an outcome that not only honours WSIS legacy, but also equips the international community to harness digital technologies as true enablers of the SDGs. And I’ll close with that. Thank you very much.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Christian, for your contribution. I now give the floor to Kayode Oyeyemi from the Africa ICT Alliance. Kayode, you have the floor.

Kayode Oyeyemi
Thank you so much, Ambassadors. Your Excellencies, my name is Kayode Oyeyemi, the Senior Programme Officer for AFICTA, Africa ICT Alliance, representing the Africa private sector, with a vision to fulfil the promise of the digital age for everyone in Africa. I am honoured to speak on capacity building, a critical enabler for Africa’s digital transformation. Africa has a continent of immense potential with a young and dynamic population.

Yet to fully harness this potential, we must invest in building relevant digital skills. According to the World Bank… 2023, 230 million jobs in sub-Saharan Africa will require digital skill by 2030, yet less than 10% of African youth receive former ICT training, compared to over 50% in Europe. We advocate for scalable capacity building programs focused on youth. We have seen a lot of initiative targeted towards youth. But when it comes to women, I think we need to do more.

An example of initiative we can take a cue from is SheCode, that is transforming a lot of lives in Nigeria. And we must not leave behind the underserved communities. And when we are executing all these initiatives, I pray that we deliver them through public-private partnership. We urge all stakeholders to support industry-aligned training in emerging technologies. This could include re-skilling workforces and offering globally recognized certification to make Africa’s talent competitive worldwide.

Capacity building must also prioritize localized digital content and language inclusivity to ensure no community is left behind. According to IFC, which is International Finance Cooperation 2022, 40 million out of about 100 million MSMEs in Africa lack access to digital tools, limiting their market reach. Therefore, MSMEs, which are the backbone of African economies, need targeted training to leverage e-commerce, digital finance, and online market effectively.

We also advocate for national annual WSIS review to factor in process and progress on capacity development across relevant digital sector, which would also help in tracking progress in the realization of the SDGs. Africa, with a population of about 1.5 billion people, is a home to around 100 million MSMEs that collectively create jobs for over 300 million people. Yet, more than 40 million of these MSMEs, 40%, have little or no digital integration in their operations.

Now, imagine the transformative impact if technology were fully embraced across these businesses. Finally, we call on relevant stakeholders to strengthen partnership between Africa’s private sector and global development partners, establish regional center of excellence, and adopt measurable frameworks to track progress. Together, we can build Africa’s digital future and empower our people for meaningful participation in the global digital economy. Thank you all.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Kayode, for those contributions. And I’ll give the floor to Dheeraj Rajput from the Indian Ministry of Electronics and IT.

Dheeraj Rajput
Thank you for giving me the floor. I am Dheeraj Rajput. I am representing Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India. India welcomes this dialogue and is pleased to contribute our reflection on capacity building as an essential driver of people-centred inclusive information society within the business plus 20 region.

India visits to vegan by acknowledging that the element paper gave much needed attention to the theme of capacity building. We see this as a positive step recognising the importance of skill and knowledge development which enables meaningful participation in the information society. At the same time, we believe there is a scope to strengthen this aspect in business plus 20 region. In this regard, we propose the following priority actions.

Number one, capacity building and digital literacy must be treated as a centre pillar of business action line, not as a complementary activity. In our submission for the business element paper, we have emphasised the need for targeted digital literacy programme for rural and tribal communities, for persons with disabilities and for the regional language speakers, which addresses the issue of economic barriers to the participation.

Number three, a structured internship and fellowship programme should be nurtured to create a pipeline of future leaders, ensuring that business action lines are guided by and informed and empowered next generation. In this context, we also wish to highlight India’s road idea, which has become a vibrant platform, bringing young voices into regional and global governance dialogue. Fourth, we believe that open knowledge-based dataset and multi-stakeholder platform can decommunicate expertise and position capacity building as a cross-cutting enabler.

Business plus 20 is an opportunity to embed a scale-level model into global framework, linking them to measurable outcome, ensuring that capacity building remains a clear legacy outcome of business plus 20, which allows us to move beyond connectivity toward meaningful, empowered participation for all. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share this reflection. Thank you very much.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Dheeraj Rajput for your contribution. I would now like to give the floor to Bea Guevarrra from NetMission News.

Bea Guevarrra
Thank you. Hi, everyone. Hi, everyone. I’m Bea. I’m the head of program development of NetMission.Asia, speaking on behalf of the Asia-Pacific youth and the NetMission community. It’s past midnight where I am, and I’m number 78, so we’re going strong. I’m grateful to be here.

I’m also a little nervous because of the three minutes on the clock, but also it’s not every day that young people get the mic in global spaces like this. And when platforms like WSIS Plus 20 give youth space, we show up even past midnight because we know how much this moment matters.

Earlier this month, we hosted the APAC Youth WSIS Plus 20 webinar series to create more spaces for youth across the Asia-Pacific region to share their insights and help shape this process together. So what I’m about to share reflects the perspectives captured in the APAC Youth WSIS Plus 20 statement, which is still live and evolving with input from more young people in our region.

Now, for many of us across the APAC region, capacity building isn’t just about digital literacy or training sessions. It’s about opening doors to opportunity, leadership, and long-term inclusion. Right now, youth are being trained, but rarely trusted. We’re asked for input, but not given real roles. We call for capacity building that is localized and multilingual so people actually see themselves in the digital world we’re building.

That includes investing in local language content and AI models that reflect our communities. Capacity building can’t stop at just digital skills. It needs to go beyond the basics to include policy, governance, and rights-based training. That way, youth aren’t just users. We become shapers of the digital future. Put us in policy labs, advisory boards, and real decision-making spaces. And it’s not just individuals who need this growth.

Institution and public servants, grassroots also need the tools to keep pace with tech, especially when navigating fast evolving areas like AI. Most importantly, it must be resourced through fellowships, mentorships, micro-grants, and paid opportunities. If you want meaningful capacity building, we have to resource it properly so that participation leads to empowerment and not burnout.

If young people are already building solutions in their communities, the least we can do is to support them, maybe through funding, visibility, or even just believing in them. Because at the end of the day, education is the most important investment we can make for ourselves and for the future. We also want to highlight something in the elements paper that youth are mentioned once as part of the list of stakeholder groups, which is a good start.

But there’s currently no standalone section that explores the specific roles, challenges, or potentials of young people. For me, I think it’s a missed opportunity because youth bring a unique perspective as both digital natives and future leaders. We’re not asking for special treatment. We understand that other marginalized groups, including persons with disabilities, indigenous communities, and the LGBTQIA plus voices are also underrepresented.

But what we’re asking for is a dedicated space, even just a small section that outlines how youth can be more meaningfully included in implementation, governance, and decision-making. Youth can’t just be an afterthought in digital future because capacity building isn’t just about the present. It’s not just about helping people now, it’s about intergenerational accountability. That means building systems that empower this generation while creating space and in support for the next.

I’m speaking up as a youth today so that one day I can help create the space and support for the youth to come after me. I hope you can all connect and collaborate and keep this momentum going, and I hope everyone’s doing well, and a huge shout out to the WSIS plus 20 team. Thank you so much.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Bea. Good to see you and thank you for your contributions. I would now like to give the floor to Alexey Trepykhalin from ICANN. Alexi, you have the floor.

Alexey Trepykhalin
Good afternoon, Ambassador Yanina, Ambassador Locali, excellencies, and esteemed colleagues. ICANN appreciates the opportunity to share our contributions to the elements paper and insights that could hopefully inform the zero draft of the WSIS plus 20 outcome document.

On internet governance, ICANN encourages the ZeroDraft to reflect the evolution of the internet and the multi-stakeholder model of governance since the WSIT summits in Geneva and in Tunisia, and to recognize the achievements of the multi-stakeholder approach. This model has played a central role in ensuring the stable and secure functioning of the internet’s technical infrastructure.

Rather than reverting to the legacy language, the ZeroDraft should reflect the internet’s continued success, enabled by 20 years of multi-stakeholder cooperation and contributions from all communities, and the need to sustain and strengthen that foundation. The Elements paper already recognized that all stakeholders, including the technical community, have an indispensable role in achieving WSIS outcomes. We hope that the ZeroDraft will use language that builds on and is consistent with the WSIS plus 10 outcome document and the global digital compact.

The GDC has recognized that the internet governance must continue to be global and multi-stakeholder in nature, with full involvement of all stakeholders. The GDC also states that the internet must be open, global, interoperable, stable, and secure. The GDC acknowledged the Internet Governance Forum as the primary multi-stakeholder platform for discussion of internet governance issues. The IGF’s mandate enables it to evolve with the internet and the technologies that are facilitated by and built on top of the internet.

As such, the WSIS implementation beyond 2025 should leverage this existing and mature assembly. To remain fit for purpose, the IGF requires sustainable resources, a strengthened mandate, and the ability to produce actionable outcomes. Therefore, in addition to extending the mandate of the IGF, I can hope that the ZeroDraft examines practical approaches to strengthen the IGF for the future. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Alexei, for your contribution. I would like to give the floor now to Judith Hellerstein from the IGF Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disabilities. Judith, you have the floor.

Judith Hellerstein
Thank you so much to the ambassadors from Albania and Kenya, the two WSIS plus 20 co-facilitators, and also to the informal multistakeholder sounding board for holding this important consultation.

My name is Judith Hellerstein, and I will be speaking as one of the two coordinators of the IGF Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability. The position of IGF DCAD is that despite the years of advocacy, the digital divide facing persons with disability is only mentioned tangentially throughout the WSIS plus 20 elements paper. Persons with disabilities are one of the largest minorities. Unfortunately, when it comes to their participation in internet governance discussions, their number is extremely small.

What does this mean? This means that in the 20 years of IGF discussions, although every IGF has had sessions and discussions on persons with disabilities, few persons with disabilities actually participate in these discussions, and even fewer actually come in person to the IGF. I pose this question, are we building the capacities in the right manner? Is there something else we can do? What do we need to change this?

We need to change the mindset, not just of the people coming to the internet governance events, but also to the organizers of these events. We need to increase the awareness of everyone involved in creating and producing the knowledge in a way where it is made accessible for people who access the knowledge differently. So the question that these knowledge producers need to ask themselves is whether that knowledge will be accessible to persons with disability or not.

What we have said in our comments to the elements paper, and what we are saying today, and we hope that the co-facilitators better understand, is that it is essential to fund and develop accessible training materials co-created with people with lived experience with disability, set diversity targets for for disability representation and leadership, including in the IGF MAG.

Create mentorship pathways for persons with disabilities, leveraging the lived experience of disability to inform leadership development and participation in internet governance and integrate disability indicators into capacity building monitoring frameworks. The WSIS plus 20 review presents a historic opportunity to move beyond tokenism and enshrine digital accessibility at the heart of a truly inclusive information society.

Without explicit commitments and concrete actions for persons with disabilities and without the active leadership of people of lived experience disability, the vision of the universal, meaningful, and affordable access cannot be realized.

As one of the coordinators of the IGF DCAD, I urge the co-facilitators and all stakeholders to ensure that accessibility and the inclusion of people with disability are not afterthoughts, but they are core priorities reflected throughout the WSIS plus 20 outcome documents and the future mandate of the IGF. Only by doing so can we build a multi-stakeholder, inclusive governance model that serves the needs of all people and sets a precedent for equitable, global digital policymaking.

Thank you so much for allowing me the time to make the statement.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much for your statement, Judith. I would now like to give the floor to Tinuade Oguntuyi from Information Connectivity Solutions Limited. Tinwade, you have the floor.

Tinuade Oguntuyi
Thank you so much, Ambassador. Thank you to the co-facilitators for making this stakeholder consultation on the elements paper possible.

I’m willing to caution Connectivity Solutions Limited and also as the founder of Tinwade Limited Foundation. I know that a lot has been said on the- Paragraph 81, which is the invitation for ideas and reflections on how to strengthen capacity.

Ekitela Lokaale
Chinwode, we seem to have challenges with hearing you, if you can please, Chinwode are you there? Oh, sorry, it seems we’ve lost her, Chinwode, okay, let me give the floor to Winnie Kamau, if you’re ready, Winnie from the Association of Freelance Journalists, and then we’ll come back to Chinwode, if she’s able to reconnect, Winnie, you have the floor.

Winnie Kamau
Thank you very much, thank you, Ambassador Sweller, Janina, and Ambassador Ekitela Lokaale, and all stakeholders present, and all protocols observed, my name is Winnie Kamau, and I bring you greetings from the Association of Freelance Journalists, here in Kenya, from winter Kenya, we’re currently facing a small winter, and I’m also the current Vice Chair of the Africa Mug, that’s the multi-stakeholder advisory group for Africa, and I’m honored to contribute in this consultation, we know that while infrastructure in many regions have improved, meaningful digital participation still lacks, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, and I believe that capacity building needs to move beyond just training, it should focus on empowering communities to truly influence money and gain from this digital era, and we look at the, from the elements paper, would like to be strengthened in three ways, and that is capacity building needs to be localized and context-driven, looking at the institutionalization of the national and regional initiatives that are in different countries, and making sure that this is able to cascade down, to all the initiatives that are all that are gathered throughout the IGF.

And also looking at the capacity building needs to be localized and looking at incorporating local languages and cultural values, translating the technical language of the IGF into easily understandable terms for a general audience and the media in storytelling. We also urge for explicit inclusion of media and civil society, youth and women and indigenous groups who are often overlooked yet critical in building resilience and inclusive digital ecosystems.

And we also understand three recommendations that we would like to give is that we require long-term sustainable investment that foster institutionalization of the ecosystems in the IGF programs and the digital literacy initiatives that are currently happening in the different regions and also in the different national programs that are happening within the IGF ecosystem.

We also would like to prioritize the capacity of governance, looking at data governance, not only digital language, but also looking at data governance, AI ethics, cybersecurity and digital rights literacy so that communities can influence and hold accountable the systems that shape our lives currently. And thirdly, empowering independent media, grassroots innovators and civic actors with resources is vital for building trust and accountability. The ability to tell our stories and ask critical questions.

So even as we co-create solutions is important and should be pushed even in the NRIs that are currently active. And also we need to have like even an audit of the ones who… are working well and the ones who are lagging behind and boost the capacity of each and every NRI that we have that are working.

And then in closing, I’d like to say that this opportunity to redefine capacity building in the YCS plus 20, it’s moving beyond a top-down transfer of knowledge to embrace a collective process of empowerment. Our commitment should be to foster future where every nation, community, and individual is equipped not only to utilize technology, but also to actively shape its development. Thank you very, very much.

Ekitela Lokaale
Yeah, thank you very much, Winnie, for those contributions and please convey my regards and those of Ambassador Yanina to everyone back home in Kenya. Thank you very much. Yeah, you’re welcome. I can see we’ve got Tinuade back now. Tinuade, sorry we lost you for a bit, but please welcome and continue with your intervention.

Tinuade Oguntuyi
Thank you so much, Ambassador Ekitele. Thank you so much. Yeah, I had a disconnection. Okay, so I was trying to answer to the invitation for ideas and reflections on how to strengthen capacity building. And I wanted to just quickly point out that as a founder of the capacity building institution, which is of course is a not-for-profit, we need to begin to rethink capacity beyond just technical assistance.

You can see in the paragraph 77, the document was reinforcing like a donor-recipient kind of relationship where you have things like technology transfer or technical assistance. But everybody on this call, we agree with me that the African continent, largely when it comes to mobile money, at least as a very good example, we have done a lot, meaning that this can be replicated even in some other things.

We should not just see capacity building as something we just because intervention does not cut across the same way. We have a number of people, especially when we do interventions at the foundation, we go to some places and you have a number of people captured in this intervention, which are even people in school. But we have a number of out-of-schools that also need to be part of this plus 20 process.

Because without dealing with this too much, with the emergence of artificial intelligence and other technologies that are emerging, it is now widening the gap rather than closing it. So we begin to see that Africans especially should be taken as co-creators, not just consumers. And that is a mindset in how we build capacity.

We should not just do the age style where we say, oh, we want to bring this knowledge to Africans like we don’t have something authentic to ourselves. We also have something authentic, but it needs to be seen in a way that is not just a generic capacity target, just for compliance or to tick the boxes. It needs to be seen like, OK, these people are also co-creators. Let’s sit down. What do you have?

What have you been doing before? And I think capacity building should not just be seen in a way that we make technology inclined alone. Creativity is part of what helps us to solve our problems. So when we get such assistance in that regard, it begins to help. Digital literacy is framed in the WSIS elements paper more like it’s portraying reliability on information.

Instead of seeing it from the lens and the uniqueness of the global South bringing us into leadership. I liked when somebody was speaking earlier and said something about when you train, you can train people for as much as you like, but are you training them to come in to occupy leadership, which is what the capacity building should actually produce.

When we come to the IGF, we come to all of these programs, and we’re able to bring to fore what really affects us. Let me quickly jump to paragraph 81, which is calling for the interventions. Please. So we are to position it as an instrument of self-determination, acknowledging that from this part of the world, especially the global South, we also have something to bring to the table and this target should be such that we tailor to it.

We should elevate local innovations for global norms, so that we will begin to see what we can create, then such appropriate intervention in court begins to apply and it begins to make a lot of sense. We should invest also in political capacity, because they will say that culture will swallow strategy for breakfast, not until we are very deliberate in targeting what the political norms is affecting the capacity building objectives.

We will not be able to get to that. Also, ground literacy in creativity, ethics, community resilience is more than technical know-how. We need to see our people. We need to know that capacity is not a gap to be filled, but a force to be unleashed. Thank you so much.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Tinuade, for your contributions. I think that was the last speaker for this section. Now, I’d like us to move to the next, and that is the section on monitoring and measurement. To start us off, I’d like to give the floor to Rashi Gupta from the Center for Development of Advanced Computing. Rashi, you have the floor.

Rashi Gupta
Thank you for this opportunity. I hope I’m audible. Am I audible?

Ekitela Lokaale
Rashi, you might have to turn up your volume. We can’t hear you.

Rashi Gupta
Am I audible now? Am I audible now?

Ekitela Lokaale
No, it’s very faint.

Rashi Gupta
Am I audible now?

Ekitela Lokaale
Yeah, that’s better. Yeah, now we can hear you. here. Please go ahead.

Rashi Gupta
Thank you for this opportunity. I’m Rashi Gupta representing Centre for Development of Advanced Computing India.

We welcome the emphasis in paragraphs 82 to 84 of the elements paper on the central role of data in identifying challenges, formulating solutions and ensuring accountability as we advance towards sustainable development goals. We also note the acknowledgement that no global targets were set beyond 2015 for the Information Society. However, we note with concern that the articulation of targets and milestones beyond 2015 has lacked specificity.

While several international agencies have adopted goals on meaningful and affordable connectivity, the element paper document does not indicate which agencies have done so, the nature of these targets and how they align with VISA’s objectives. So, for greater transparency and benchmarking, we urge that zero draft includes a consolidated mapping of post-2015 global targets with references to the adopting bodies so that these can be harmonized within the VISA’s 20 framework.

From our perspective, one of the persistent challenges in implementing the VISA’s framework has been the inadequacy of robust, harmonized and user-friendly mechanisms for data collection, reporting and progress assessment. So, the wide scope of the VISA’s action lines is appreciated, but the absence of the unified and accessible interface for diverse stakeholders limits timely inputs, transparency and accountability.

So, there is also a significant gap in domain-specific quantifiable indicators, for example, in areas such as AI readiness, digital inclusion and capacity building. Without such structured measurement, it becomes difficult to evaluate the impact of our collective initiatives or to make mid-course corrections. So, we therefore emphasize the importance of creating a transparent, interoperable and participatory global framework that draws inspiration from the existing UN and ITU indicators and introduces a domain-specific metrics for emerging areas.

Such a system must facilitate comprehensive and inclusive data gathering in an enable evidence-based digital policymaking and empower all stakeholders including developing countries to measure progress and adapt strategies in a timely manner. We therefore urge that monitoring and measurement becomes a core pillar of WSIS plus 20 outcomes ensuring that our vision is not only aspirational but also measurable and the next phase of the information society is inclusive, evidence-based and accountable. Thank you, that was all from my side.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much Rashi for your contributions. I now give the floor to Israel Rosas from the Internet Society. Israel you have the floor.

Israel Rosas
Thank you your excellency. The Internet Society appreciates the opportunity to participate in this consultation. 20 years ago only 16% of the world was online. Today it’s nearly 70% that’s four and a half billion more people with access to the internet and the ability to create and communicate across the world.

Although the internet and the way people use it have evolved the WSIS framework and its action lines have proven remarkably adaptable and remain the foundation for ongoing development. Advances such as cloud computing, smartphones, instant messaging, even AI build on this shared framework. Thanks to the collaborative implementation by all stakeholders these action lines have extended connectivity enabled access and facilitated sustainable development.

At the heart of these achievements lies a multi-stakeholder model of internet governance which is also the core of how the internet has been built and is operating nowadays. It is vital that the zero drought ensures an ongoing commitment to this multi-stakeholder model. For two decades the internet governance forum and outcome of WSIS has successfully served as the world’s primary multi-stakeholder platform for dialogue on internet governance issues and an indispensable element for implementing the WSIS action lines.

The IEF and more than 180 regional national sub-regional and youth IEF initiatives have fostered meaningful information exchange, shared understanding and opportunities to advance solutions which have contributed to real world change. Therefore the zero draft should also reaffirm a permanent mandate with sustainable funding for the internet governance forum under its current bottom-up and multi-stakeholder approach.

The WSIS action lines have accommodated the vast range of technological developments that have occurred to date making the WSIS framework the natural platform for addressing emerging issues through strengthened implementation and genuine multi-stakeholder collaboration. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. The zero draft should commit to addressing new challenges by strengthening the implementation of the WSIS action lines rather than creating new action lines.

Further with multiple processes now addressing digital development ensuring coherence among them under a cohesive framework is more important than ever. Hence we insist that the zero draft clearly recognizes the vital importance of the multi-stakeholder model in realizing the WSIS vision and the GDC commitments on their unified implementation roadmap. Finally we urge the zero draft to follow.

the approach outlined in paragraphs 1 to 3 of the WSIS plus 10 outcome document and reaffirm commitments to the WSIS vision, the Geneva declaration of principles, the Geneva plan of action and its action lines, the Tunis commitment and the Tunis agenda, along with the values and principles of multi-stakeholder cooperation and engagement. The outcome of the WSIS plus 10 review is our bridge to the internet we all envision, open, trusted and truly for everyone. The choices we make today will shape that future for generations to come. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much Israel for your contributions. I would now like to give the floor to Dana Cramer from the Young Digital Leaders of Canada. Dana, you have the floor.

Dana Cramer
Excellencies, thank you for having me today. My name is Dana Cramer and I coordinate the Canada Youth Internet Governance Forum and lead a youth non-profit called the Young Digital Leaders of Canada. I am also part of the WSIS Youth Caucus, which this Youth Caucus submitted feedback to the elements paper and can be found at WSISyouthcaucus.org. Some of our other members have been speakers in various capacities in today’s session.

A key element I want to highlight is the measurement of the youth engagement in various WSIS initiatives and their outcomes. Historically, youth have not been recognized within various information society initiatives, instead receiving a tokenized role in their inclusion. Meaningful inclusion of youth in this space includes bringing youth into the collaborative multi-stakeholder governance fold, ensuring they are equal contributors to other stakeholder groups such as governments, the private sector, civil society, technologists, academics, and other groups still emerging.

Youth have proven they are at the forefront of making meaningful digital impact, however do not receive this recognition. We are therefore advocating for youth participation and engagement to become a metric to track along each of the WSIS action lines. By tracking youth engagement, this would create an incentive for various agencies and to include youth within their multi-stakeholder approaches to achieving an equitable digital society for us all.

By ensuring this meaningful youth engagement through metric tracking, this will help in the design of digital initiatives that will safeguard this critical digital infrastructure for equitable use by future generations. With this metric, however, we need to define who is a youth. The UN and various member states have a plethora of definitions for youth. The UN broadly includes 15 to 24 years old for statistical purposes, but also have youth initiatives including youth up to 27, 28, 30, and 35 years old.

As a Youth Atlas Project, a key text in Youth Internet Governance notes, defining youth as 18 to 35 is beneficial as it encompasses a wide range used by countries. We would also encourage the Zero Draft to separate language from young people to children and youth. This would parallel other agreed language, such as Resolution 72-155. Children would be considered as those under 18, and we advocate for youth to be considered as those 18 to 35.

By separating out the broad young people terminology used in the elements paper and using engagement with children and youth as a metric, this would allow organizations not to risk liability issues, such as in publishing names or images of children, which is illegal in certain jurisdictions, but including those youth over the age of 18 as part of this metric to ensure the representation of young people broadly. Thank you for your consideration today.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Dana, for your contributions. I think that was the last confirmed speaker for that section. I would like us to move to the next section, that is follow-up and review, and give the floor to Sébastien. Sebastien Bachollet from the Internet Society, ISOC France. Sébastien, you have the floor.

Sebastien Bachollet
Hello, I am Sebastien Bachollet, and on behalf of Internet Society France, I would like to thank the co-facilitator for the opportunity to provide feedback on some aspects of the WSIS plus 20 review element paper. WSIS was a key step in the development of the Internet, following on from the IETF and ICANN, as well as numerous regional and national efforts.

It is important to emphasize that WSIS’ goal of digital inclusion and development must remain at the heart of the Zero Draft, as well as the construction of an inclusive and trustworthy digital society. Today, the Internet is used by everyone. The factors for success of the Internet are openness, global reach, the use of open and interoperable standards, and its decentralized nature.

Internet governance has practiced for more than 20 years in all its diversity, from ICANN to IETF, from the global IETF to local ones like the French IETF, is also essential to the development of the Internet and its legitimacy for users and other stakeholders. NRIs are a key success for the IETF, enabling Internet governance discussion at the local level, capacity building, and increasing the most needed diversity online culturally and linguistically.

Rapid digital transformation since then has also brought new challenges and exacerbated digital divide. Among the difficulties encountered, the digital divide and the many forms it can take, including an usage divide, and it was underlined by some of the previous speakers, has been an obstacle that must be taken into account. Strengthening cultural diversity and linguistic diversity on the Internet is paramount and must be included in the document.

We would like to focus on certain points that we believe are essential to highlight. On Internet governance, paragraph 59 states that the governance of the Internet should be multilateral and so on and so forth, and it is our firm belief, backed by practice, that Internet governance should be multistakeholder, not multilateral, in order to ensure the inclusion of non-governmental stakeholders and to be able to hear the diversity of voice of stakeholders… declaration, NetMundial and NetMundial plus 10 is an important input to be taken into account. So with this plus 20 element paper further states that the IGF has become an established forum for discussion and its importance of the primary multi-stakeholder platform for discussion of internet governance issue has been recognized. Yes this recognition it’s important but we need a significant striction of the forum and it should receive international recognition and solid funding to assure the sustainability of its work.

It must not be a competition with just that position of other body because this will only weaken the forum objective and multi-stakeholder model. We support the renewal of the continuation of the IGF. I will stop almost here and if I can dream to allow the next discussion to be open to various languages it’s strange that a UN setup is just in English.

Thank you again for this opportunity for Internet Society France to participate to this discussion and ready to be part of the future of internet governance. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much Sebastien for your contributions, I would now like to give the floor to Elizabeth Bacon from the public interest registry, Elizabeth you have the floor.

Elizabeth Bacon
Thank you excellency it’s a pleasure to be with all of you today, I appreciate the opportunity.

My name is Elizabeth Bacon and I’m with the public interest registry, we are the operators of the .org top level domain and I’m speaking today also as a member of the technical community coalition for multi-stakeholderism or TCCM, we’re a group of aligned members of the internet technical community along with a long history of involvement with the multi-stakeholder internet governance community.

Our role as members of the internet technical community is to operate the infrastructure that supports the internet’s core functionality, an open global secure resilient and interoperable internet is a crucial foundation for human development innovation and progress.

We appreciate the opportunity very much to participate in the stakeholder consultation today and offer our contributions to the elements paper and especially note our thanks to the president of the general assembly, the co-facilitators and the secretariat for your work thus far in the review process, it’s been exemplary and we appreciate all the steps you’ve taken to open it to more multi-stakeholder process.

With respect to the internet governance and follow-up and review aspects of the elements paper, we note that critical to contributing to efficient and effective progress towards an inclusive information society is dedication to diligent measurement of participation, funding, outcomes and impact of the work of the IGF, national and regional initiatives, policy networks, best practices for a dynamic coalitions and that includes how their work contributes to the progress on the goals of the WSIS action lines.

The IGF’s internal structures should be empowered to review their functioning and develop new mechanisms as required through a process of constant review and monitoring. The GDC recognized the IGF as the primary multi-stakeholder platform for discussion of internet governance issues and the WSIS plus 20 review should prevent the duplication of IGF’s purpose, scope and activities as the IGF has the agility and institutional strength to address issues relating to digital governance and GDC implementation.

We believe that measuring and monitoring the work of the IGF will allow the IGF community to move forward. more accurately report on the contributions made by the community’s work, but also identify where we can more effectively and efficiently work. Providing data-driven analysis can identify those areas where efficiencies in planning and execution and follow-up can be made.

Along with measurement, providing a data-driven approach to planning and evaluating the work of the IGF, a more strategic approach to engagement between the yearly IGFs to encourage continuous progress towards identified goals is key to getting the full value of the investment in the IGF. We believe the IGF is key to discussing a broad spectrum of Internet governance issues, identifying emerging themes and priorities.

However, reviewing the organizational aspects of the IGF could allow us for work to flow more continuously through the annual event to the NRIs and other dynamic coalitions, etc., maximizing the investment in the IGF. We urge member states to consider and support these approaches to maximize the impact of the IGF. And thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to this important process.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Elizabeth, for your contribution. I would now like to give the floor to Avri Doria from Technicalities. Avri, you have the floor.

Avri Doria
Thank you. To start, I thank the co-facilitators for creating this opportunity to contribute. My name is Avri Doria. So many important things have already been said, and yet I want to make four basic suggestions for the Zero Paper. One, please resolve the enhanced cooperation conundrum without the continuing disruption and confusion.

As a former participant in the first working group on enhanced cooperation, I point out that there are frequent efforts to enhance the cooperation between multilateral and multistakeholder processes, for example, these consultations. Some of the efforts have been successful. These efforts need to be nurtured and expanded. They are the enhanced cooperation that we need. Second, please understand the global necessity for capacity building and the need to do something concrete about it.

As the coordinator of of schools of internet, of the coordinator of the digital, of dynamic coalition of schools of internet governance, I wanna emphasize that this is an area that the IGF is adept at. Capacity building is the essential work that is being done by IGF policy networks and by dynamic coalitions among others. This needs to be recognized, coordinated, expanded and supported with financial support, which is necessary in order to do something concrete about capacity building.

Third, please continue to move towards greater and evolved use of internet-based communication and hybrid models for consultations, deliberations and meetings in general. As a participant in the technical community for over three decades, I want to argue that in order to become more inclusive and development oriented, more of the world’s people need to have the means to participate in their own governance.

While we still need to close the connectivity gaps, we also need to move beyond connectivity for those connected to being able to use it for access and participation in all forms of internet and digital governance. We cannot all travel to meetings. We cannot all fit into any of the venues or cities, nor should we. Only the internet can accommodate us all. I appreciate its use on this occasion.

Fourth, as a participant in the NetMundial processes, I ask that you recall the advice from the NetMundial plus 10 multi-stakeholder statement, also known by several names as the Soundpalo Guidelines, dedicated to multilateral processes in the light of stakeholder realities, the realities of the internet, of pervasive surveillance and data college, of AI, of quantum and of other evolving technologies.

I quote, multilateral processes need to become more inclusive to ensure the meaningful participation of all stakeholders, especially from the global South. Incorporating diverse voices and multiple worldviews by involving broader stakeholder input can enhance multilateral processes. Better decisions can be achieved and better delivery of outcomes assured through inclusive processes for adequate deliberation and consensus building. To achieve these gains, all stakeholders should be empowered to contribute in a meaningful way to…

in all stages of processes tackling issues of concern. In the spirit of multi-stakeholder principles, multilateral processes should evolve. It is essential to foster a safe, trustworthy and fair environment where imbalances between participants are addressed. Governments have a key responsibility to guarantee the conditions for securing diversity and achieving robust multilateral processes. Please incorporate these guidelines into your work on the next versions of the paper that will guide us through the ongoing processes. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Avri, for your contribution. I would now like to give the floor to Swati Lall, International Internet Exchange of India. Swati, you have the floor. Swati Lall: Thank you. Am I audible?: Yes, you are. All right.

Swati Lall
Thank you, co-facilitators and excellencies. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the important theme of follow-up and review. I’m Debra Swati Lall, a consultant at National Internet Exchange of India.

Traditionally, the WSIS review process has followed a 10-year cycle, providing valuable opportunities for reflection and collective action. However, given the unprecedented speed of technological advancements, a decade-long interval may no longer be adequate. Emerging technologies such as Gen-AI, facial recognition, and sophisticated algorithmic systems are rapidly reshaping digital economies and societies globally.

At the same time, innovations in DPI, including digital identity systems, interoperable digital payment networks, and secure data exchange frameworks are transforming the delivery of essential public services, making them more efficient and inclusive. While these advancements… offer opportunities for inclusive growth and improved public services. They also pose significant new challenges in areas such as data governance, cyber security, privacy, and maintaining trust in digital systems. This therefore necessitates a multi-layer follow-up mechanism.

At the first level, annual progress to comprehensively track implementation by using global indicators, which also reflect the unique needs of specific communities and nations designed as per their socio-economic conditions. This would not only enhance accountability, but also highlight gaps, unmet needs, and areas requiring renewed global attention. Second, a formal mid-term review such as a WSIS Plus 25 in 2030 would provide a vital checkpoint closely aligned with the UN’s review of the SDGs.

This approach ensures coherence between digital development initiatives and broader international development goals, facilitating adjustments to resource allocation, capacity building efforts, and strategic priorities in a coordinated manner. It is also essential that continuous multi-stakeholder dialogue meaningfully informs formal global WSIS reviews.

To enable this, platforms such as the annual WSIS Forum and a sustainably resourced IGF should play a more structured role, not only as spaces for sharing best practices and addressing emerging challenges, but also as channels through which stakeholder insights directly shape review outcomes. Strengthening coordination between these platforms in the formal WSIS follow-up process will help ensure that policy responses remain grounded, inclusive, and responsive to evolving needs.

Furthermore, the substantive focus of future follow-up processes must evolve beyond traditional measures of digital access. Evaluating connectivity should now encompass whether individuals have sufficient skills, affordable access to high-quality devices, and more. adequate bandwidth, and importantly, digital literacy required to benefit marginally from public services, meaningfully from public services, commerce, education, innovation, especially in the era of AI and data-intensive technologies.

Equally critical is transparency in monitoring international capacity-building efforts such as structured training, financial support, and collaborative research partnerships to clearly identify persistent gaps, particularly in the Global South. To keep the WSIS framework forward-looking and responsive, annual reviews should also incorporate emerging priorities such as responsible AI, algorithmic governance, and green ICT and sustainability in a structured manner. Finally, meaningful multi-stakeholder engagement must remain central to the WSIS process.

Future reviews should ensure consistent and representative participation from civil society, youth, grassroots communities, the technical community, and the private sector. National and regional consultations must be conducted in a timely manner so that their outcomes can inform global deliberations and inputs from national IGFs and other regional fora should also be systematically integrated into the formal review process. That’s all from my side. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Swati, for your contributions. I think that brings us to the end of the speakers under that segment. However, I know that a few friends were unavailable when it was their turn to speak, and we don’t want to leave anyone out, so I understand that Jenna Fung from NetMission Asia is now available. Jenna, if you can hear me. Yes, I can. Is my audio okay? Yes, we can hear you. Jenna, you have the floor.

Jenna Fung
Awesome. Good afternoon, chairs, colleagues, and fellow stakeholders. Thank you for the opportunity to speak in this consultation today. My name is Jenna Fung. I am the program director of NetMission.Asia, a digital literacy program for youth in Asia-Pacific. I’ve worked in the field of Internet governance and youth engagement for over seven years, and my focus has always been on ensuring that youth voice, especially from underrepresented communities, are not only heard but meaningfully integrated into digital policy processes.

Today, I would like to offer comments on paragraph 82 to 84 under the monitorings and measurements. section, drawing from our latest youth-led report conducted by NetVision’s Asia-Pacific Policy Observatory on digital governance and artificial intelligence in our regions, published this June, as well as our regional consultation with youth leaders. We welcome the recognition of exponential data growth, but stress that quantity alone is insufficient, especially in the AI era, where youth data is used in opaque ways.

A recent APPO analysis reviewed that weak information consists of a consent system and poor transparency in how youth data is harvested for training AI models, deepening trust deficits among younger users. So we call for a right-based, community-centered data governance with ethical protocols, desegregated breakdowns including age, gender, disabilities, and youth involvement at every stage of data lifecycle. While several agencies have spent post-2015 targets, we stress connectivity alone is not digital inclusion.

Youth in our study reported having internet access alone but lacking digital literacy, online safe space, and support to meaningfully participate in digital economies or policy disclosure. So our findings spotlight that connectivity must be meaningfully defined, and broadband access is not enough, and true digital inclusion really depends on literacy, affordability, digital safety, and agency.

We also found that AI impact on youth mental health and online safety through defakes, cyberbullying, and algorithmic harassment, and we demand a broader suit of metrics that goes beyond connectivity rates. We advocate for a new indicator, such as access to digital skills and safe online spaces, youth representation in policy avenue, and measures of empowerment through digital tools.

Lastly, it is critical for ZeroDraft to not only outline proposals on monitoring and measurements, but to embed youth and marginalized groups as co-creators, because young people are capable of contributing to policy evidence if we are giving space and tools.

We propose an inclusive framework that combines quantitative metrics such as percentage youth with safe access, digital literacy rate with qualitative tools such as as participatory survey, lived experience storytelling, and community checkpoints to ensure meaningful progress towards SDGs in the digital age. The WSIS plus 20 process must center youth-led data practices, inclusive connectivity metrics, and participatory monitoring mechanism in a zero draft. And that’s it for my speech today. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Jenna Fung, for your contribution. Greatly appreciated. I’d now like to give the floor to Pari Esfandiai from the Global Technopolitics Forum. Pari, you have the floor.

Pari Esfandiai
Thank you, Ambassador. I’m Pari Esfandiai representing Global Technopolitics Forum, a not-for-profit research organization focused at the intersection of technology, geopolitics, and governance. Today, I focus on AI. The element paper provides a very positive foundation, but there are conceptual limitations.

The paper frames AI largely as a technical development challenge, a matter of capacity gaps to be closed. This misses the larger reality. AI is now a strategic infrastructure of global power. What we face is not just unequal access, but systemic asymmetries in who gets to shape the rules on the infrastructure and control the knowledge systems that AI encodes. Without attention to this, capacity building risks becoming a substitute for genuine agency. There are also normative weaknesses.

The paper invokes ethics, but avoids binding commitment to human rights-based governance. We need enforceable standards and meaningful oversight on transparency and accountability. Notably, the paper avoids even naming surveillance as a systemic risk. This undermines its credibility on privacy and trust. Finally, there are missing dimensions. The most significant being the geopolitical context in which development and governance are unfolding. While the paper notes that AI is concentrated in a few countries, it fails to examine what this means.

The rise of a global compute oligarchy, increasing block-based governance, and regulatory fragmentation, it also fails to address how AI models trained on narrow linguistic and cultural datasets may suppress pluralism and reinforce epistemic centralization. While multi-stakeholderism reaffirms, the paper proposes a new mechanism to rebalance power. Where are the ideas for sovereign model validation, algorithmic oversight, or public interest AI governance? Without such structures, multi-stakeholderism becomes performative.

To conclude, the Elements paper builds a useful base, but it remains rooted in a pre-global digital compact worldview that doesn’t reflect the political stakes of the AI in 2025. To move forward, we must reframe AI as a ground of power and design governance that prioritizes agency over access, rights over ethics, and justice over process. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you, Pari, for your contributions. I greatly appreciate it. And now I’d like to give the floor to Sarah Nicole from Project Liberty. Sarah, you have the floor.

Sarah Nicole
Excellencies, colleagues, and participants, thank you very much for allowing such a moment for a stakeholder to take the floor and share their reflections and feedback.

I am Sarah Nicole, Policy and Research Manager at Project Liberty Institute, an international non-for-profit organization that focuses on giving people a voice, choice, and stake in their digital life through timely, actionable research on digital technology and responsible innovation, as well as the stewardship of an open-source protocol called DSNP. I’m going to make remarks about AI, but most importantly about the broader data economy. AI is an automation technology, a tool for acceleration and amplification.

So naturally, it amplifies the current structure that streams users’ controls over their data. It further strengthens a handful of companies and their dominant roles over digital life. So overall, AI benefits from the centralization of the web in its few platform to scrap all the data necessary to train its model.

In a word, it is very much so the result of a digital economy that has been in place forever, a decade now, and it’s now only reinforcing it. But also this is just the tip of the iceberg of a dysfunctional data economy that thrives off of an opaque and biased system with an astonishing lack of accountability.

So it is fundamental to embed data agency at the core of digital infrastructure, the one that contributes to AI, but also to the rest of the technology. Mandating the use of open source, interoperable, and decentralized protocol to foster trust and resilience in the digital infrastructure solution is no longer an option.

Data agency is the ability of citizens to have control over their personal data, including how it’s used, shared, and monetized, ensuring that they have a true voice, choice, and stake. It ensures the true empowerment of citizens. And today, data agency can be achieved technically, but it must be embedded in a shared vision and a shared ambition.

And we should not limit ourselves to reactive regulation and ticking legal boxes like compliance mechanism to limit the harms, but truly build this proactive and positive vision. We believe that adding data agency into the Zero Draft and further document is necessary to keep with this funding vision to build a people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society. Thank you.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you very much, Sarah, for your contributions. Colleagues, I think we’ve come to the end of the list of speakers, but we note that we have a few minutes to go. So if you’re willing to make your contribution, please feel free to raise your hand and my colleague, Ambassador Yanina, will be able to give you an opportunity to contribute. For now, I thank you all for your very, very kind contributions. I pass the baton now over to my colleague, Ambassador Yanina. I thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Ambassador Lokale for sharing up this very important discussion with our stakeholders. Now I would kindly follow on the request that you have made to all participants that would like to make a few other remarks to raise their hands. I see Alexei. Asking for the floor. I’ll give you the floor, Alexei.

And then if, if that’s been the case, you know, I know that you have spoken before, but if you’d like to intervene, again, we’ll give you this opportunity and ask to other colleagues that didn’t have this opportunity to speak before if they would like to intervene to raise their hand. But meantime, Alexei, if you’d like to take the floor, the floor is yours. Alexey Trepykhalin: Thank you, Ambassador Janina for giving us the floor a second time.

ICANN contributes directly to the WSIS Action Lines that promote local content, cultural identity, and linguistic diversity. We’re honored that the Internationalized Domain Names, or IDNs, were cited in the elements paper as helping to make the Internet more multilingual. Together with the Universal Acceptance, or UA, program, these efforts advance a multilingual Internet by ensuring that valid domain names and email addresses work across all Internet-enabled applications, devices, and systems.

Widespread adoption of IDNs and UA is essential to bringing, bridging the digital divide, but also to opening the gateway to the next billion Internet users, sustaining language diversity, building trust in the Internet’s infrastructure, and reducing barriers to access for all communities. The role of UN agencies who have contributed to the implementation of the WSIS Action Lines should be recognized and further supported.

For instance, ITU has done a commendable job in tracking the achievements of and encouraging further WSIS implementation, including WSIS stocktaking through its annual ITU WSIS Forum. In addition, UNESCO recently signed an agreement with ICANN to enhance linguistic diversity in the digital world to make the Internet more accessible to hundreds of millions of users.

These examples underscore the value of each component of the multi-stakeholders – governments, the private sector, civil society, the technical and academic communities, and international organizations. Their distinct roles and ongoing collaboration are essential to sustaining the WSIS Plus 20 framework and meeting future challenges. Thank you so much.

Suela Janina
Thank you, Alexei, for this additional input. Now I would like to see if there is any further requests for the floor.

And I would like to ask the Secretary to help me if I’m not seeing anyone because it seems that I don’t have further requests. I don’t have further requests. So maybe this means that everyone is satisfied with the time allocated and the opportunity to speak during these joint consultations. So now I would like to invite my colleague, Ambassador Lokaale, to deliver a few closing remarks. Ambassador Lokaale, the floor. I return to you for the closing remarks.

Ekitela Lokaale
Thank you. Thank you very much, Ambassador Janina. And thank you all for your active engagement and the thoughtful reflections that you shared throughout today’s consultation. It’s indeed been a privilege to hear directly from member states, as well as stakeholder representatives from across sectors and regions. Your contributions today will inform the drafting of the zero draft of the WSIS Plus 20 outcome document, which we expect to circulate in approximately a month’s time.

We encourage you to remain closely involved as the process moves forward toward the General Assembly high-level meeting this December. I thank you again for your very active contributions and look forward to further engagement in the coming weeks and months. Thank you.

Suela Janina
Thank you. May I join also you, Ambassador Lokaale, in thanking everyone for this very rich discussion and productive exchange that we have had around the inputs that we have also been presented by all stakeholders and member states. Indeed, we have had a very substantial part in numbers, but also in substance. Of contributions around 114 in written submissions, which will be made available in the web page of WSIS plus 20 process that will be public very soon, the latest next week, but also the transcript and the recording of this consultations that we had a few hours today will be made available very soon. So we’ll have a lot of contributions that will feed the discussions.

Now it’s a part of our work, Ambassador Lokaale with all the team, the secretariat and everyone who was helping us, our teams at the missions, but also the secretariat DESA and all everyone engaged in this important process to prepare the zero draft.

And we’ll very kindly ask everyone to be in touch with us during this period, but also in the later stage, when we’ll go in the real negotiations of the text, because everyone understands the importance of the process.

And we are really very much fortunate to have also the sounding board with us today, but also in the next stages, we’ll be very closely working together in order to present this document that hopefully will come to part of being negotiated text that will be approved by consensus in December. So again, thank you to everyone for being engaging with us during this hours.

And we are looking forward to our future cooperation in the next weeks to come for the WSIS review process. I wish from this side of the world that I am, it’s already evening. So good evening to everyone and good continuation of the day in New York and in other parts of the world. Thank you very much to everyone for this productive engagement.

We conclude here and we are looking forward to next consultations in person in New York. The calendar will be very soon be public. We are looking together with the secretariat in order to find the appropriate accommodations in the UN headquarters. So everyone can have the opportunity, those that can travel, but we’ll also create opportunities for those that cannot join us in person to connect with us in a hybrid format.

Thank you very much and a good continuation of the day and a nice evening to everyone that is from the other side of the world.