From Ideas to Action: the integration of the Sao Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines within the broader digital governance processes

Jorge Cancio argues that multistakeholder governance long relied on a vague shared understanding, which helped sustain consensus but left people without practical direction. He says the Sao Paulo multistakeholder guidelines matter because they begin to turn that ambiguity into actionable guidance on how to run real multistakeholder processes.

He explains that earlier internet governance agreements endorsed governance by different stakeholders but left their roles surrounded by 'constructive ambiguity', including in the Tunis Agenda and later revisions . He says NetMundial 2014 developed general internet governance and process principles, but did not yet provide practical instructions, which created two problems: sincere actors did not know how to implement multistakeholderism, while others could misuse the label for mere consultation or whitewashing . He then describes the Sao Paulo guidelines as an attempt to fill this gap by adding concrete process steps such as defining the issue, identifying affected stakeholders, and addressing power asymmetries .

Jorge Cancio argues that UN acknowledgement of the Sao Paulo guidelines is politically significant because the UN rarely recognises outputs created by multistakeholder processes. In his view, the WSIS Plus 20 outcome therefore gives the guidelines added legitimacy within the UN system.

He states that paragraph 94 of the WSIS Plus 20 outcome document acknowledged the NetMundial Plus 10 outcome and, indirectly, the Sao Paulo multistakeholder guidelines . He emphasises the importance of this by noting that the UN does not normally acknowledge products of multistakeholder bodies or processes, making this recognition unusual and consequential .

Lea Kaspar argues that recognition of the Sao Paulo guidelines in the WSIS Plus 20 outcome is especially important for civil society. She says this matters because it raises expectations for meaningful stakeholder engagement and helps ensure human rights remain central in digital governance discussions.

She says the WSIS Plus 20 outcome document's recognition of the Sao Paulo multistakeholder guidelines was highly significant for civil society and notes that her organisation and others had pushed hard for this within the UN framework . She adds that the guidelines set 'a high bar' for stakeholder engagement and provide an entry point for keeping human rights on the agenda while ensuring all stakeholders affected by digital transformation have a seat at the table .

Lea Kaspar argues that formal recognition of guidance is necessary but insufficient on its own. She says practical implementation requires a wider support system, including mechanisms that help people understand, apply, improve and assess the guidance over time.

She explicitly says that having something recognised is necessary but 'not a sufficient condition for success' and that even the best guidance cannot implement itself . She compares this to how treaties, government frameworks and standards are implemented through broader ecosystems, and cites the WSIS Forum itself as part of the WSIS implementation ecosystem alongside measurement tools and practitioner networks .

Lea Kaspar argues that implementation would improve if practitioners had one accessible place to find examples of how the guidelines have been applied. This would make it easier to learn from experience across local, regional, global and UN settings instead of reinventing approaches case by case.

She proposes creating a single point where people can see practical examples of implementation and says this should include curated, accessible knowledge for practitioners . To illustrate the need, she points to examples already mentioned in the discussion, including Switzerland, Brazil, the IGF, regional processes and UN examples, arguing that these should be gathered in one place .

Lea Kaspar argues that successful multistakeholder governance does not happen automatically because it depends on specific skills. She says more investment is needed to build the capacities of people who design, facilitate and participate in these processes.

She says directly that successful design, facilitation and participation in multistakeholder processes are skills rather than givens . She supports this by referring to the experience of participating in ICANN and IETF meetings, where effective engagement clearly requires developed expertise, and suggests that existing internet governance schools could offer useful lessons for capacity building .

Lea Kaspar argues that many institutions are willing to use multistakeholder methods but need practical guidance tailored to their own setting. She suggests building support mechanisms that connect them with existing expertise so they can adapt proven models instead of repeatedly starting over.

She says many governments and stakeholders do not resist implementation but often do not know where to start, and that what helps is having someone guide them through the process . She gives the example of the ITU potentially creating a multistakeholder consultation group and argues that institutions should be able to draw on prior consultation models and on networks of experts, rather than beginning from scratch each time .

Jennifer Chung argues that the Sao Paulo guidelines are valuable because they offer a practical basis for evaluating how multistakeholder a process really is. She stresses that different communities apply multistakeholderism differently, so common guidance helps assess those variations more systematically.

She says the guidelines were, for her, the first attempt to measure what she calls 'multistakeholderness' . She supports this by noting that multistakeholder processes are not monolithic and are applied differently across communities, which makes a shared set of tools useful for assessing what each community is actually doing .

Jennifer Chung argues that national and regional IGFs should actively review their own practices against the Sao Paulo guidelines. She sees this as a way to generate comparable evidence, learn across regions, and improve implementation based on data rather than assumption.

Speaking from her Asia Pacific Regional IGF role, she describes a regional working group that built understanding of the WSIS Plus 20 process across a diverse set of communities and suggests that it could now examine the Sao Paulo guidelines . She points to examples such as the Swiss IGF and Brazil IGF having already reviewed themselves against the guidelines and says similar efforts could create regional learnings and a dataset for more empirical, evidence-based assessment .

Jennifer Chung argues that the IGF is an appropriate institutional home for supporting the guidelines over time. She suggests it could serve as a repository or caretaker because of its broad community structure and strategic planning capacity.

She says she hopes the MAG Working Group on Strategy could consider a focused task or subgroup related to this work, particularly now that the IGF can engage in longer-term planning . She also recalls that when the Sao Paulo guidelines were adopted two years earlier, there was already a hope that the IGF could serve as a repository and caretaker for them, and she expresses support for that role .

Jennifer Chung argues that the IGF's permanent mandate changes its responsibilities. It now has enough continuity to move beyond repeated recommendations and begin focused, time-bound implementation planning that can shape both current and future cycles.

She says that with the permanent mandate, the IGF now has the luxury of multi-year planning, whereas previously the MAG was renewed yearly without certainty about the future . She adds that this is not only an achievement but a responsibility, and says clearly that the community does not lack recommendations but struggles with implementation, which is why she wants a discrete and time-bound exercise to move things forward .

Gitanjali Sah argues that WSIS implementation should not be treated as something only UN agencies do internally. She says all stakeholders are already implementing the Action Lines and should therefore be invited to help shape the roadmap being developed.

She explains that Action Line facilitators are UN agencies tasked under the resolution with developing a WSIS Action Lines roadmap by 2027, including gender, human rights and monitoring aspects . She then stresses that implementation is not only about UN agencies because all participants are implementing the Action Lines, and she invites the wider community to contribute to the roadmaps through a link to be shared on the mailing list and in WSIS Forum highlights .

Gitanjali Sah argues that broad participation by senior leaders across UN agencies demonstrates that WSIS is no longer confined to a few specialist institutions. She sees this as evidence that multistakeholder WSIS practices can now spread more deeply across the UN system.

She reports that a lunch for heads of agencies brought nearly 10 agency heads, around 15 deputies and more than 50 UN agencies, which she says shows that the WSIS Plus 20 process has pushed WSIS into a new phase of high-level interest . She also notes that discussions on Action Lines and multistakeholderism are now taking place not only in ITU, UNESCO, UNDP and UNCTAD, but also in agencies such as WHO, ILO, UN Habitat and UN Women .

Isabelle Lois argues that the CSTD is beginning to operationalise the WSIS Plus 20 outcome rather than merely acknowledge it. She says this includes formally referencing the Sao Paulo guidelines and shifting part of the CSTD cycle towards discussing implementation, especially in years without negotiation.

She explains that after the adoption of the WSIS Plus 20 resolution, the CSTD had the task of translating it into annual and now biannual review work . She says that because the guidelines were noted in the WSIS Plus 20 resolution, they were also included in the CSTD resolution, and that bureau meetings and event planning discussed how to bring them in as much as possible within UN procedural constraints . She adds that with resolutions now negotiated every two years, the non-negotiating year should be used to focus more on implementation, with the multistakeholder dimension as an essential part of that work .

Isabelle Lois argues that one concrete way to implement the guidelines is to assess existing governance processes against them. She presents the Swiss IGF as an example of a national forum reviewing its procedures to see where it already complies and where it needs improvement.

She says the Swiss IGF conducted an in-depth review of how well it follows the guidelines and assessed its existing procedures even though the forum pre-dated the guidelines . She explains that the review went through each point of the Sao Paulo guidelines, including issues such as accessibility and multilingualism, and used the findings to support yearly improvements to the forum's functioning .

Beatriz Costa Barbosa argues that multilateral institutions can become more inclusive and effective when they incorporate multistakeholder principles. She uses Brazil's G20 presidency to show that even a primarily intergovernmental forum can benefit from bottom-up input and broader participation.

She says multilateral processes can benefit from the Sao Paulo guidelines and that this requires greater inclusion, especially of stakeholders from the global South, because inclusive deliberation and consensus-building produce better decisions and outcomes . As an example, she explains that during Brazil's G20 presidency, the government drew on its domestic multistakeholder tradition, including experience from developing the Marco Civil, to bring internet-related debates into the G20 through a multistakeholder perspective . She also cites the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change, developed with the UN Secretariat and UNESCO, which supported dozens of projects globally and included a Brazilian chapter run in a multistakeholder way with strong civil society and academic participation .

Beatriz Costa Barbosa argues that the response to gaps in digital governance should not be to create overlapping fora, but to reinforce the IGF. She believes the IGF is uniquely positioned in the UN system to connect policy discussion with implementation because of its open, hybrid and networked design.

She warns against fragmentation and duplication of fora and says this is why CGI has long argued that the IGF should be strengthened in its coordination role . She supports this by describing the IGF as open, hybrid, intersessional, linked to local and regional initiatives, and inclusively designed, all of which make it suitable for connecting discussion to action . She also recalls that NetMundial 2014 had already called for a strengthened IGF through an extended mandate, improved outcomes, and stable predictable funding, while noting that some of these needs remain unresolved .

Jacques Beglinger argues that organisations do not need to begin implementation from zero because practical tools already exist. He points specifically to the IGF toolkit as a resource that translates broad principles into usable guidance for national initiatives.

He says that in trying to break the Sao Paulo principles down, his association started from the IGF's toolkit for launching an IGF initiative . He describes the toolkit as available online in five languages and says it is very practical and tells users everything they need, even if it is somewhat too long .

Jacques Beglinger argues that the Sao Paulo principles are easier to use when condensed into shorter and more practical materials. His point is that usability matters, and organisations may need simplified versions to operationalise the guidance effectively.

He explains that the Swiss Support Association for the IGF has been grappling with how to break the Sao Paulo principles down and is now working on shortening them to around three to four pages . He adds that even the useful IGF toolkit is 'very practical' but 'too long', reinforcing his view that shorter formats improve usability .

Anriette Esterhuysen argues that the CSTD still does not meet basic standards of transparency and equal treatment for non-state actors. She presents this as a concrete case where the Sao Paulo guidelines should be applied more seriously, especially on access to information and levelling the playing field.

She acknowledges positive efforts by Isabelle Lois and some governmental chairs, but says that in practice non-state actors still face barriers in CSTD participation . Her specific example is that observer member states receive all documents, while non-state participants who spend scarce resources to attend must 'beg' for the same documents, which she says violates the spirit of equal access and a level playing field envisaged by the guidelines .

Wolfgang Kleinwächter argues that the Sao Paulo guidelines are still not widely known outside core internet governance circles. He highlights AI governance as a nearby policy space where awareness appears especially limited.

He reports that at the Global Dialogue on AI Governance that morning, nobody mentioned the IGF except the Kenyan minister as host-country representative . He also says that among the 40-member panel, nobody appeared aware of the Sao Paulo guidelines except possibly Maria Ressa, illustrating weak recognition in adjacent governance spaces .

Wolfgang Kleinwächter argues that stronger institutional connections are needed between internet governance and AI governance processes. He proposes formal liaison exchanges so that knowledge about the guidelines and IGF perspectives can circulate across these currently separated debates.

After noting the lack of awareness in the AI governance meeting, he says it is the duty of the community to make the guidelines more broadly known . He then repeats a proposal made at a previous MAG meeting: there should be liaison exchanges between the MAG and the AI panel .

Adam Peake argues that a single 45-minute session is not enough to advance this agenda and asks what follow-up will come next. The broader point is that implementation requires continuity through future discussions and institutional processes.

He asks directly how the useful discussion will be taken forward and what comes next if this is only the start . In response, Jorge Cancio says this is a continuation rather than a beginning and indicates that the conversation will continue at the IGF, in the Asia Pacific IGF, and in Nairobi, which confirms the need for ongoing follow-up across forums .