WSIS+20 Interactive Stakeholders Consultation (Europe)

Summary

This discussion focused on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Plus 20 review process, examining progress made over the past 20 years and considering future priorities for digital governance. Participants emphasized the continued relevance of the WSIS vision for a people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society. Many speakers highlighted the importance of preserving and strengthening the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance, with particular emphasis on renewing and enhancing the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). There was broad agreement on the need to address persistent digital divides, especially in rural and marginalized communities, and to ensure meaningful connectivity and digital skills for all.

Participants stressed the importance of aligning WSIS implementation with other global frameworks, particularly the Global Digital Compact (GDC), to avoid duplication and enhance coherence in digital governance. Many called for anchoring digital governance more firmly in international human rights law and addressing emerging challenges like artificial intelligence, data governance, and environmental sustainability. The role of media and journalism in the digital age was highlighted, with calls to preserve and strengthen WSIS Action Line 9 on media. Several speakers emphasized the need for increased representation and participation from the Global South, youth, and other underrepresented groups in digital governance processes.

There were calls for practical measures to enhance stakeholder participation, including implementing the São Paulo Multi-stakeholder Guidelines and providing resources for diverse participation. Many participants urged for the WSIS Plus 20 review to result in a unified roadmap that bridges WSIS action lines, Sustainable Development Goals, and GDC commitments. The discussion underscored the critical importance of the WSIS Plus 20 review as an opportunity to reaffirm global commitments to inclusive digital development and strengthen mechanisms for multi-stakeholder cooperation in shaping the digital future.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– Reaffirming and strengthening the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance

– Integrating the Global Digital Compact (GDC) into the existing WSIS framework

– Renewing and strengthening the mandate of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF)

– Addressing emerging challenges like AI, data governance, and digital divides

– Ensuring human rights and inclusivity are central to digital governance

The overall purpose of this discussion was to gather stakeholder input to inform the WSIS+20 review process and shape the future of global digital cooperation and governance.

The tone was largely constructive and collaborative, with participants offering thoughtful recommendations while emphasizing shared goals. There was a sense of urgency around addressing new challenges, but also optimism about building on WSIS’s legacy. The tone remained consistent throughout, with stakeholders from diverse backgrounds echoing similar priorities and a commitment to multi-stakeholder cooperation.

Speakers

Speakers from provided list:

– UNKNOWN

Additional speakers:

– Ambassador Giannina – Co-facilitator of WSIS Plus 20 review process

– Ambassador Gopalan – Co-facilitator of WSIS Plus 20 review process

РAnna-Karin J̦nestr̦m РSpecial Advisor to the President of the General Assembly on Digitalization

– Juan Gose Martinez Badilo – UNCTAD representative

– Jeetanjali – ITU representative

– Cedric Watholes – UNESCO representative

– Isabel De Sola – UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies representative

– Yu-Ping Chan – UN Development Program representative

– Budget Keynes Labe – UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights representative

– Muktar Seck – UN Economic Commission for Africa representative

– Wolfgang Klein-Watscher – University of Aarhus

– Ellie MacDonald – Global Partners Digital

– Alex Trepikhalin – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

– Valeria Betancourt – Association for Progressive Communications

– Paloma Lara Castro – Derechos Digitales, Policy Director

– Mona Gabana – Internet Society

– Titi Casa – Agency Pernittalia Digitale, Head of International Affairs

– Fiona Alexander – American University

– Rodi MacLean – Global Systems for Mobile Communications Association

– Manny Anastasio Dube – International Chamber of Commerce

– Laura O’Brien – AccessNow

– Einar Bolin – American Registry for Internet Numbers, Vice President of Government Affairs

– Anna Osterling – Article 19

– Giacomo Mazzone – Eurovisione, Secretary General

– Konstantinos Komaitis – Atlantic Council’s Democracy and Tech Initiative, Resident Senior Fellow

– Julian Casabuenas – Colnodo

– Julian Drake – Columbia Institute for Teleinformation

– Miriam Koehler – Deutsche Welle Academy

– Mark Carvel – European Dialogue on Internet Governance

– Boyana Dzhumerova – Global Forum for Media Development

– Jimson Olufuye – Contemporary Consulting Limited, Principal Consultant

– Paula Otegui – Latin America and Caribbean Network Information Center

– Alisha Sharif – Technical Community Coalition for Multistakeholderism

– Mohamed Farahat – IGF and AFIGF member

– Abdel Jalil Bashar Van – House of Africa

– Michel Zanga-Glinze – Consortium d’Appli aux Actions pour la Promotion et le Développement de l’Afrique (CAPDA)

– Ilona Hickok – Global Network Initiative, Managing Director

– Elina Walshink – Microsoft

– Jacqueline Trevisan-Pigato – Data Privacy Brazil

– Natra Santo – Dynamic Teen Coalition

– Kenneth Leng – Net Mission Asia

– Shumaila Hussain Shahani – Tech Global Institute

– Hossam El Gamal – Private sector representative from Africa, former AFICTA chairman

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Plus 20 review process was the focus of this comprehensive discussion, examining progress made over the past two decades and considering future priorities for digital governance. Participants reaffirmed the continued relevance of the WSIS vision for a people-centred, inclusive, and development-oriented information society while emphasising the need to address emerging challenges and technologies.

Strengthening the Multi-stakeholder Model

There was strong consensus on the importance of preserving and strengthening the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance. Speakers, including Ambassador Ekitela and representatives from civil society organizations, called for reaffirming commitment to this approach as a core principle of WSIS and implementing the São Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines. Ensuring meaningful participation from all stakeholders, particularly those from the Global South, was highlighted as crucial for inclusive policymaking. Several speakers provided examples of how the multi-stakeholder model has contributed to internet governance, such as the development of technical standards and policy frameworks.

Renewing and Enhancing the Internet Governance Forum (IGF)

Participants widely agreed on the need to renew and strengthen the mandate of the Internet Governance Forum. Fiona Alexander from American University and others suggested granting the IGF a permanent mandate with sustainable funding. Recommendations included enhancing its inclusivity and ability to produce actionable outcomes, and strengthening national and regional IGFs. Many speakers proposed using the IGF as a platform for implementing Global Digital Compact (GDC) commitments, emphasising the desire for alignment between various digital governance initiatives.

Addressing Emerging Challenges and Technologies

The discussion underscored the necessity of updating the WSIS framework to address emerging challenges such as artificial intelligence, data governance, and environmental sustainability. Speakers advocated for developing rights-respecting governance mechanisms for new technologies while focusing on closing digital divides that may be exacerbated by technological advancements. There were calls to integrate AI governance into existing WSIS action lines, demonstrating a preference for evolving current structures rather than creating entirely new ones.

Data Governance and Privacy

Multiple speakers, including representatives from civil society and academia, emphasized the critical importance of data governance in the digital age. They called for the WSIS framework to more explicitly incorporate principles of data protection, privacy, and responsible data use. Discussions touched on the need for global standards in data governance while respecting national sovereignty and cultural differences.

Enhancing Human Rights in Digital Governance

A shared emphasis on integrating human rights principles into WSIS implementation emerged as a key theme. Participants stressed the importance of anchoring digital governance more firmly in international human rights law, with calls to formally recognise the role of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in WSIS processes. Addressing digital authoritarianism and human rights abuses online was highlighted as a priority, along with ensuring private sector respect for human rights in line with UN Guiding Principles.

Promoting Inclusive and Sustainable Digital Development

Speakers shared a common view on the need to promote inclusive and sustainable digital development. This included focusing on meaningful connectivity and digital skills rather than just access, supporting community-driven models of connectivity, and aligning digital governance with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Addressing market concentration and ensuring equitable benefits from the digital economy were emphasised as crucial for bridging persistent digital divides, especially in rural and marginalised communities.

Speakers from African countries, including representatives from Kenya and Nigeria, highlighted specific challenges and priorities for implementing WSIS outcomes in the region. These included the need for increased investment in digital infrastructure, capacity building, and policies that support local innovation and entrepreneurship.

Role of the Private Sector

Several speakers addressed the important role of the private sector in implementing WSIS outcomes. They emphasized the need for businesses to align their practices with human rights principles and contribute to closing digital divides. Some participants called for mechanisms to address market concentration and power asymmetries in the digital economy, ensuring that the benefits of digital transformation are more equitably distributed.

Youth Engagement and Environmental Sustainability

Representatives from youth organizations emphasized the importance of better integrating youth voices in the WSIS process. They called for more opportunities for young people to participate in decision-making processes and shape the future of digital governance. Additionally, several speakers highlighted the need to consider environmental sustainability in digital governance, addressing the environmental impact of digital technologies and leveraging them for climate action.

WSIS Plus 20 Review Process and Next Steps

The co-facilitators provided details on the WSIS Plus 20 review process timeline and next steps. They outlined upcoming consultations, the preparation of a zero draft, and the schedule for negotiations leading up to the high-level meeting in 2025. Speakers emphasized the importance of making this review process more interactive, allowing for direct dialogue between stakeholders and governments.

Areas for Further Exploration

The discussion raised several questions for future consideration, including how to update the WSIS framework to address new challenges without creating entirely new action lines, and how to integrate the Global Digital Compact into existing WSIS architecture to avoid duplication. Participants also called for exploring concrete steps to strengthen the Internet Governance Forum and mechanisms to better integrate diverse voices, including those of youth and marginalized communities, into UN digital governance processes.

Conclusion

The discussion underscored the critical importance of the WSIS Plus 20 review as an opportunity to reaffirm global commitments to inclusive digital development and strengthen mechanisms for multi-stakeholder cooperation in shaping the digital future. The high level of consensus among speakers on key issues suggests a shared vision for the future of WSIS and global digital governance, which could facilitate more coordinated and effective implementation of agreed-upon strategies and policies.

UNKNOWN: Recording in progress. Hi, Ambassador Giannina. Hi, everyone. We are here for the PDA’s office. Good morning. Good morning, Ambassador Gopalan and everyone. Please, can we start? It’s okay. You are well-connected. We hear you. We see you here from New York. So, please, we can start the meeting. Wonderful. Thank you. Great. So, good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, colleagues, stakeholders, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a pleasure to warmly welcome you to this stakeholder consultation. Also, on behalf of Her Excellency Ambassador Suela Giannina, the permanent representative of Albania, and myself, I warmly welcome you to the second day of the WSIS plus 20. stakeholder consultations. We thank you for your active participation in this vital process. But before we begin, I would like to invite the Office of the President of the General Assembly to deliver some opening remarks. Office of the PGA, please, you have the floor. Thank you so much, Ambassador Ekitela, and dear participants. I’m Anna-Karin Jöneström. I am the Special Advisor to the President of the General Assembly on Digitalization. So I have a few words to say on behalf of the President of the General Assembly who is following this process, this important process, very closely. So a very good morning to all participants from the tech community, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and other stakeholders. This year we reflect on progress made over 20 years since the landmark World Summit on the Information Society. Your participation today in today’s stakeholder consultation is critical and deeply appreciated. The insight, experience and expertise you bring are central to ensuring this review, that this review is inclusive and that it leads to an equitable, transparent, and fair digital future for all. As you know, our deadline for the 2030 Agenda for Development is approaching. And the urgency to bridge the digital divide has never been greater. Digital technologies, when harnessed equitably and responsibly, can be a powerful accelerator of sustainable development. From education and healthcare to agriculture and climate action, they are already transforming how we deliver services, they are already transforming how we deliver services. share knowledge, and uplift communities. Yet billions of our fellow citizens still lack access to the tools and skills they need to participate in the digital age. This is not only a technology gap, it is a development gap. And it is a gender gap, a generational gap, and often a geographical gap. Fortunately, we have a strong foundation on which to build a more just global information society. The reason Global Digital Compact, adopted as part of the Pact of the Future, is not a solid framework for improving digital cooperation and closing the digital divide. It calls on government and stakeholders to forge partnerships to realize the vision of the World Summit on Information Society. A vision of people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society. I thank the co-facilitators, the permanent representatives of Albania and Kenya, for chairing today’s important consultations. I reaffirm our commitment to ensuring this review process is inclusive and transparent. And on behalf of the President of the General Assembly, I urge all stakeholders to actively participate in today’s consultation and engage meaningfully in shaping the future we envision. I wish you a productive deliberations and look forward to your invaluable insights. Thank you to the OPGA for those inspiring remarks. I would like, just before, as co-facilitators appointed by the President of the General Assembly, we are very pleased to continue. This inclusive dialogue as part of the broader WSIS Plus 20 review process mandated by the General Assembly. Today we build on the first day of consultations, which featured inputs from stakeholders across the Asia-Pacific and the Americas. In today’s session, we look forward to hearing from UN system entities and stakeholders from Africa, West Asia, Europe and the Americas. Your insights will directly inform the WSIS Plus 20 elements paper, which is being finalized in preparation for the ZERO draft this August. That document will in turn shape the final outcome to be adopted at the high-level meeting of the General Assembly in December 2025. We are also grateful to the Member States present today for their ongoing commitment to multi-stakeholder engagement and for listening carefully to the contributions being made throughout this process. I will now turn to my co-facilitator to continue with today’s proceedings, Ambassador Janina. Thank you, Ambassador Loekal and distinguished colleagues. Again, building on what my colleague already informed you, I would like also to put to your information the fact that on 30th of May, we had the first preparatory meeting and stock-taking session and we heard from Member States. They reaffirmed the WSIS vision as a foundation for inclusive digital development. They also emphasized the role of ICTs in achieving the SDGs, the need to bridge persistent and emerging digital divides, and the importance of aligning WSIS Plus 20 with the Global Digital Compact. There has been also strong support for enforcing the role of the Intergovernmental Commission. Internet Governance Forum, and for ensuring that digital governance is ethical, inclusive, and human rights-based. A full summary of those discussions is available on the Secretariat’s website, and if there is interest, I would invite you to consult this summary. Last week, we had also the opportunity to participate in the UNESCO’s Conference on AI and Digital Transformation in the Public Sector. The message that we gathered also from this meeting was clear. We need governance models that are agile, responsive, and rooted in multi-stakeholder values, especially as we respond to rapid developments in AI, neurotechnology, and other emerging fields. Today marks our second dedicated stakeholder consultation, and your voices remain essential. Before we begin the interactive session, I would like to kindly recall to you and remind you of the guiding questions that we have circulated beforehand of this meeting. The first one, to what extent and how has the vision of a people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society evolved over the past 20 years since WSIS? The second question is related with the current priorities and challenges to the implementation of the WSIS outcomes. And the last and the third question is, how can cooperation through WSIS mechanism alongside the recently adopted Global Digital Compact enhance coherence, inclusivity, and accountability in digital governance? Before we take the floor and open the floor for the participants, the Secretary will now share a few briefing housekeeping announcements, and I invite Dennis to share some elements of this announcement. Please, Dennis, the floor is yours. Thank you, Ambassador. Today we will start with the UN agencies. We have around 6-7 UN agencies, it will serve as talk taking and they will each have 5 minutes. And then we have around 35 speakers, each will have 3 minutes. And your microphone will be controlled by the secretariat, so please when you have the floor, enable video. And then a timer will also appear on your screen to help manage your time. However, we will not cut you, but we hope that everyone will respect to allow all participants a chance to speak. Some are also joining late from late time zones this morning from other parts of the world. And if your name is not in the speaker list and time permits, the co-facilitators will give you the floor at the end. So please wait also for that. Thank you, Denis. Back to you, Akitena, for moderating the first part with UN agencies. OK, thank you, secretariat, for those guidelines. I now would like to introduce or give the floor to the first speaker, Juan Gose Martinez Badilo from UNCTAD. You have the floor. Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador Locale, Ambassador Janina, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for inviting UNCTAD. I will speak mainly about the contribution of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development, the CSTD, of which UNCTAD is the secretariat, but also add some elements from the perspective of UNCTAD’s work on the digital economy. As you know, the Commission on Science and Technology for Development, or CSTD, has a mandate by the General Assembly to undertake the system-wide follow-up to the implementation of the WSIS outcome. The most recent contribution of the WSIS Plus 20 review is therefore guided by the roadmap that was adopted by the CSTD last year at its 27th annual session. and if reflected in the draft resolution submitted to the ECOSOL for adoption, which is also available for consultation, we’d be happy to share it as necessary. This was the result of a two-year long process of multi-stakeholder consultation that culminated in a high-level discussion during this year’s annual session, 28th session of the Commission. The discussion benefited greatly from a report by the Secretariat entitled Implementing World Summit on the Information Society Outcomes, a 20-year review, which we can also make available for consultation, which is a comprehensive analysis of the changes that have taken place since WSIS, particularly since WSIS Plus 10, and it has a review of the stakeholders’ perception of both the successes and ongoing challenges in the process. The CSTD requested that the Secretariat report also be transmitted to the GA as background to the deliberations of WSIS Plus 20. I would like to highlight four major findings of both the report and of the review. First, technological innovation since WSIS has progressed at an unprecedented pace, moving from early computerization to today’s AI and advanced robotics. Second, while access to digital infrastructure, especially mobile broadband, has surged globally, significant digital divides persist, particularly in LDCs and among vulnerable groups. Third, the integration of digital technologies in the public service raises serious concerns around data governance, privacy, and environmental sustainability. Fourth, although the digital economy has expanded, its benefits remain unevenly distributed, marked by market concentration and digital divide. This underscores the need for inclusive policies and strengthens international cooperation to ensure equitable digital development. On this last point, we note the broadening of economic activity to include the growing number of firms that rely on digital inputs, such as e-commerce platforms, social media, and Internet search services. as well as industries that are either dependent or significantly enhanced by digital technology, infrastructure, services, and data. So, looking forward, I would like to stress some of the strategic priorities to guide the future of the information society on the basis of the recommendations of these two reports that I mentioned. One, closing all dimensions of the digital divide, especially for marginalized groups, developing governance frameworks for emerging technologies such as AI, ensuring that digital transformation aligns with the SDGs, promoting integrated cross-sectoral digital strategies at the national level, and enhancing international cooperation, particularly to strengthen the voice of developing countries in global digital policymaking. Some issues remain unsolved, and this would also need attention. For instance, there is no universally agreed definition of the digital economy. Meanwhile, it is clear that more economic activities have become digitized. In the international context, we see a growing impact of digitalization, cross-border e-commerce, and services that are digitally delivered. So there is a clear direction, but it is uneven. The pace at which digitalization affects economies varies consistently. We see, for instance, less than 5% of people buying goods and services online in low-income countries versus more than 80% in high-income economies. And this pace, as I mentioned before, this uneven pace is most visible in market capitalization. So there is no doubt that there are tremendous opportunities in digitalization, but there is a need to consider how we equitably share the benefits from it. The digital compact calls for expanding inclusion in and benefits from the digital economy for all. So this should be one of the guiding principles. There is a need for additional attention to building an ecosystem conducive to reaping benefits from digitalization and addressing the associated risks. So every government needs to assume leadership in this context. context, but the complexity of the policymaking is such that we need to have effective cooperation so that action can be coordinated. I can speak about the work of the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Measuring E-Commerce and the Digital Economy, which is a valuable platform, and of course, we would like to emphasize that the CSTD and the ECOSOC have a responsibility to provide an inclusive platform in addressing both current and future digital challenges and opportunities, and for building consensus around our shared goals. We look forward to deepening and strengthening this collaboration with you, our co-chairs, and with colleagues and stakeholders during this WSIS Plus 2020 review. I thank you. Thank you, Angtad. I now give the floor to Jeetanjali, sir, from the ITU. Please, you have the floor. Thank you, Ambassador Nukale, it’s nice to see you again. Ambassador Janina, it was really nice meeting you in New York, and of course, Ambassador Annakarine, nice to see you again as well. The WSIS process represents digital cooperation and action, a United Nations process to advance inclusive information and communication technologies. It has fostered a committed multi-stakeholder community of WSIS stakeholders, including more than 50 UN entities dedicated to leveraging technology for global development and ensuring its benefits reach everyone, everywhere. Looking back, three main achievements stand out from WSIS. First, we focused on people, not just technology, ensuring that everyone shares in the benefits of digital progress. Second, we’ve made the framework for collaboration on digital, bringing the private sector, civil society, technical community, academia, and others to reflect the digital world’s diversity and diversity. and complexity. And third, we’ve built adaptable and agile governance processes to keep pace with opportunities and challenges of emerging technologies. We have been discussing artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies at the WSIS Forum, its special tracks, workshops, which are built in a bottom-up approach, reflecting what the community wants to discuss, consult, and hear. The AI for Good is being organized alongside the WSIS Forum as well to bring in the new technologies, emerging technology discussions into the WSIS Forum, including the AI Governance Dialogue last year and this year as well. The 11 WSIS action lines, they have given the stakeholders a clear framework to tackle evolving digital challenges from infrastructure and ethics to capacity building and cybersecurity. The WSIS Stocktaking Database provides us with a rich repository of projects implementing the WSIS action line, showcasing now a clear linkage between the WSIS action lines and the GDC objectives. We want to give special recognition to two key outcomes of WSIS and two complementary processes, the Internet Governance Forum for global digital governance issues and the WSIS Forum for grassroots digital development issues. As for the impact of WSIS on UN’s work, it is essential to mention that role that digital now plays in advancing sustainable development. We’ve seen the world go from 1 billion internet users in 2005 to 5.5 billion today, from dial-up to 5G networks, from fragmented efforts to multi-stakeholder collaboration. Two decades on, WSIS has stood the test of time as a powerful example of inclusive digital cooperation in action. Our main job is to finish, bridge the digital divide once and for all. The Pact for the Future and its Global Digital Compact adapted last year is a milestone in the WSIS Plus 20 process. IQ, UNESCO, UNCSTD, UNDESA initiated a joint WSIS Plus 20 preparatory process in September 2022 that resulted in the design of milestone meetings and decisions like we saw for instance the CSTD Annual Session, IGF 2025 Upcoming, WSIS Plus 20 High Level Event, all contributing towards the UNGA WSIS Plus 20 Overall Review. The annual CSTD resolution on the assessment of the progress made in the implementation and follow-up of the WSIS recognizes the importance of integrating the implementation of GDC commitments into the WSIS architecture in order to avoid duplications and to ensure a cohesive and consistent approach to digital cooperation. We heard Umtad mentioning that before me. The WSIS Plus 20 High Level Event will also give an opportunity to all stakeholders to interact with the WSIS Plus 20 co-facilitators and the agenda also includes a WSIS Plus 20 special track at the request of stakeholders. The outcomes of the event will be submitted by the Chair to the UNGA Overall Review as well. The United Nations Group on Information Society has already mapped the key priorities and objectives of GDC with the WSIS implementation process to ensure that digital cooperation is well coordinated. Within the ITU, ITU member states requested the ITU Secretary General to submit the roadmap on ITU’s implementation of WSIS to the Overall Review. And in accordance to ITU Council Resolution 1334, Thank you, Gitanja Lisa, from ITU for that comprehensive input. I now give the floor to Cedric Watholes from UNESCO. You have the floor. Cedric Watholes Thank you, Ambassador Locale, Extrem and Janina, your excellencies, dear colleagues. Last week, UNESCO hosted a WSIS 2.0 branded conference on capacity building on AI and digital transformation in the public sector, and we brought together over 400 in-person participants and 700 online attendees. This event demonstrated the continued vitality and relevance of the WSIS process with highest level participants and from governments, but also from UN agencies, civil society and the private sector. Now, I would like to come directly to speak to the three questions raised by you. I’m facing a little bit technical challenges that I will manage. So first, I would I’d like to extend our gratitude to the co-facilitators, the two of you, but particularly also to Ambassador Janina from Albania, who joined us in person at this event. And we were also honoured to welcome our Angus partners, ITU, UNDP and UNCTAD, including at the Deputy Secretary General level, reinforcing our shared commitment to the WSIS vision. Now, starting really with question one. UNESCO says yes to the people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented, but no, we have moved beyond an information society. UNESCO advocated already in 2005 for inclusive knowledge societies, which remain the only term retained in the 2030 development agenda. While WSIS initially focused on expanding access to information, UNESCO’s vision emphasised transforming information into people-owned knowledge to empower individuals and communities and to contribute concretely to development. Today, however, we face another fundamental shift. The rare commodity is no longer information, which is abundant, but it is attention. So inclusive knowledge societies, which should be centred around human attention, human well-being and a role for humans in an AI-facilitated future at their core. Now, secondly, on priorities and challenges. Our WSIS 2.0 consultation along the WSIS 6 Action Line UNESCO facilitates identified several critical priorities. First, AI governance. UNESCO’s recommendation on the ethics of AI, adopted after multi-stakeholder consultations anonymously by UNESCO member states in 2021, provides a global framework. for ensuring AI serves humanity. Today, we’re supporting over 70 countries in building ethical, inclusive AI strategies under the Action Line 10. Second, meaningful digital inclusion. While broadband access has expanded dramatically, the use of digital tools remains elusive for many. We urge WSIS Plus 20 to address the use gaps by investing in relevant multilingual content into skills and inclusive, affordable digital public services. Third, on the cultural diversity and education dimensions, UNESCO champions cultural diversity in the digital environment. Our 2005 convention and its policy monitoring platform feature over 350 policy measures promoting cultural diversity online. And we recommend integrating cultural rights more systematically into digital policies. In education, the COVID pandemic underscored digital learning’s urgency and UNESCO’s guidance on AI in education, and our gateway to public digital learning with UNICEF supports inclusive, quality learning while protecting learners’ wellbeing and development. Fourth, information integrity and trust. Disinformation, online harassment, and opaque algorithms threaten democratic discourse. UNESCO’s guidelines on the governance of digital platforms and our work on journalists’ safety provide practical tools to restore trust. We urge WSIS Plus 20 to prioritize information integrity, including through Action Line C3 and C7. Fifth. We should be concluding in about 15 seconds. Okay. So just to say environmental sustainability is key, gender equality are key too, and there should be a way to. to mainstream it and on digital governance, I would have liked to join Gitanjali on quoting the CSTD resolution, saying that we need to integrate the implementation of GDC into the WSIS architecture. And just to say that we will be looking forward to working with all of you towards this truly people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented future where technology serves humanity. Thank you, Ambassador. Thank you. Thank you very much, UNESCO, for that presentation. Now I’d like to give the floor to Isabel De Sola from the UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies. You have the floor. Thank you, Chair. Speaking on behalf of the UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies, I take the opportunity to quickly congratulate both ambassadors on your appointment as co-facilitators of this important review process. Since the approval of the Pact for the Future and the GDC in September 2024, and in our role of supporting UN system coordination, ODET has learned a great deal about how the WSIS outcomes and GDC, Global Digital Compact, reinforce each other and how resources can be brought to bear for efficient implementation. Before I describe those learnings, we would also like to share with the colleagues and co-facilitators what digital cooperation looks like on the ground from our vantage point. The topics at the top of OSET’s, and today ODET’s, agendas since 2022 were hard to imagine at the time in which the WSIS was negotiated. Digital public infrastructure, data governance, the safety of AI, the platform economy. The GDC engages with these topics head-on, and though they are relatively new, we are keenly aware that we need. multi-stakeholder and international cooperation around them, if we are to deliver on their potential for development. The multi-stakeholder approach in digital cooperation is one of the most important legacies of the WSIS process, which ODET hopes to continue. We’ve also successfully engaged newer communities and networks of practice as a UN system over the years. For example, the open source community, tens of thousands of coders strong, or the burgeoning networks of AI scientists, or volunteer fact checkers working to fight disinformation online. They may have engaged with the UN by opening all kinds of doors. They share many of the same goals as the WSIS community for a safe, open, human rights respecting online space. Indeed, over the years, the ecosystem for digital cooperation has been enriched and enlarged. The GDC is an annex of the pact for the future. Conceptually, it’s one part of the six-pillared pact, which is meant to be a multidisciplinary but holistic approach to complex global challenges. There are many entities and processes linked to delivery of the pact’s great ambitions, including the WSIS. In our recent experience, ODET has found the GDC and WSIS are very complementary at the level of substance. We cannot approach the challenges outlined in the GDC without first tackling challenges identified by the WSIS. For example, the call to support multilingualism made in the WSIS rings ever true for the GDC, where in the context of rapid LLM training, existing biases in content online are reproduced in AI. We have learned a great deal about aligning the architectures of the WSIS with GDC objectives. Over the past eight months, the Executive Office of the Secretary-General led a rigorous effort to plot out all of the milestones supporting PACT implementation over the next two years. A new working group on digital technologies, co-chaired by ITU and ODET, welcomed the mapping mentioned by my colleague, Itanjali, which shows how WSIS contributes to GDC implementation. We thus now have at our disposal a tracking tool for GDC implementation in real time, which includes activities from WSIS Action Lines. In these challenging times financially, we’ve been encouraged to see how existing projects at ITU, UNESCO, UNDP, UNCTAD, the OHCHR, UNU, UNIDO, ITC, across the UN system, propel GDC implementation forward in an efficient fashion. While many WSIS architectures contribute to GDC implementation, it is important to note that there are other efforts outside of the WSIS trajectory that also have an important role to play. In New York, we’re following the negotiations for an independent international scientific panel, which will be accountable on terms yet to be decided. Or there are human rights related objectives in GDC, which will be overseen by the UN Human Rights Council. Thus, from ODET’s perspective, we believe that the CSTD resolution encourages GDC implementation through existing WSIS architectures, where that is efficient and relevant. And in many cases, it’s already happening. We thank you ambassadors for the opportunity to provide our remarks and look forward to collaborating with our colleagues at UNDESA and across the system in this exciting review. Thank you. Thank you so much, Isabel De Sola from the UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies. I now give the floor to Yu-Ping Chan from the UN. Development Program, UNDP. You have the floor. Miss Chan, we can’t hear you well. Perhaps you can check your microphone. We can’t hear you at all. Not yet. No, we still can’t hear you. Does that work? Yeah. Okay. I’m going to speak loudly or if, and hopefully this will be a little bit better. I apologize for technical difficulties. On behalf of the United Nations Development Programme, let me extend my congratulations to the representatives for the appointment as co-facilitators and extend the UNDP’s full support and readiness to facilitate and support in any way you might need. And so thank you again for this opportunity for the UNDP to reflect on the WSIS process and the process forward. What we would say, I think, is that a little bit as how similar colleagues have mentioned from UN system, we see the principles of the WSIS process as very enduring. And so it is actually foresighted of the people who negotiated WSIS 20 years ago to really put in place such elements as capacity building, enabling environment, and really these two lines, which remain relevant even to today. And even though the tools might be a little bit different, I think we’ve heard other colleagues mention artificial intelligence, digital public goods, digital public infrastructure, open source. The approach that WSIS embodies remains relevant as of today and guides the way the UN system and perhaps the international community approaches digital cooperation. And so what our suggestion… would be is that in the evolution of WSIS, we remain focused on those principles of people-centeredness, inclusive, development orientation, as the approach to which we foresee the evolution of the use of digital technologies. And so we also think that, for instance, the WSIS Plus 20 review could reflect on digital public goods, artificial intelligence, environmental sustainability, human rights standards, and so forth, in essence, bringing together these global discussions that have taken place at the international community. And in fact, the focus of the United Nations Development Program, where we look to serve the over 170 countries and territories in which we have offices, is to ensure that there is impact from these global discussions that are taking place at the UN and other forums as well. And so the focus on impact, perhaps, is looking to where the WSIS action lines can action and implement the areas of the GDC, the global digital discussions that have happened, and really land this in in-country practice and delivery. Last week, I had the honor to speak in Paris on a forum with Her Excellency, the PR of Albania, where I had actually emphasized that that is the main call from the program countries and developing countries that we work with, the notion of impact and delivery, and the idea that all these conversations at the global level should then translate to the possibility of more resources, more support, more partnerships for the needs of developing countries, and so clearly articulated by my colleague from UNCTAD as well. So the focus of United Nations Development Program from all our country offices, where we have been asked by our program countries for capacity building, for greater support and technical advisory on digital public goods and infrastructure, on support to, for instance, specific areas in terms of e-health and e-agriculture, working very closely with other colleagues that lead WSIS actions lines, such as FAO and others as well, is that in translating the global discussions, what we need to look at, especially in this time of financial difficulties and constraints, is that delivery at the country level itself. And so this conversation around priorities and. future and especially the complementarity of the various discussions would be very useful we think from a programmatic perspective and from a UN system perspective to really underline the need for delivery and focusing on the idea of mobilization of resources and partnerships to meet the in-country demand and needs and to identify the importance of the elements that WSIS has actually focused on from the start. The notion of development centeredness, inclusiveness and people-centeredness in all these particular action lines. So the WSIS plus 20 review from our perspective is an opportunity to underscore these elements, bring on the fresh areas or the new areas that have come since the last 20 years such as artificial intelligence, digital public infrastructure, digital public goods, all of which UNDP are working on but then really wrap them in the through lines that come from the WSIS itself. The focus on people-centeredness, on capacity development, on the enabling environment and as well the notion of really equipping ICT policymakers to make these critical discussions when it comes to leveraging these new technologies. So for us at UNDP the WSIS action lines remain highly relevant, a very effective guide to how we should carry out our work at country level and a means to translate global discussions into this precise in-country impact that I’ve spoken about. Very quickly in my last 30 seconds I would also emphasize the fact that WSIS and the collaboration through WSIS has really brought the UN system closer together. So we as UNDP are very proud to work with our colleagues from ITU, UNCTAD and UNESCO to really lead forth in a very collective bottom-up approach the work of all the UN agencies to focus on this area of delivery and impact. So through the United Nations Group on Information Society we really look at how we as UN agencies can really translate again the guidance and discussions of the international community and the member states into action and also emphasizing again the multi-stakeholder approach that is so critical to ensuring this agility and flexibility as Her Excellency had said at the start of the meeting into actual practice. I’ll end there and thank you so much for giving UNDP the opportunity to speak. Thank you, UNDP, for that intervention. Now I’d like to invite Budget Keynes Labe from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. You have the floor. Yes, thank you very much for giving me the floor. And on behalf of OHCHR, I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this informal consultation. And equally, I congratulate the two ambassadors on their appointment. The Geneva Declaration of Principles and the Tunis Agenda were very, as we just heard, foresightful in the sense that they placed human rights at the front and centre as foundational to the information society. In the 20 intervening years, OHCHR has actively contributed to the implementation of OHCHR, but also, of course, the independent human rights mechanisms we support. And we have done that at both levels, the global level and also the country level, through engagement with different stakeholders at the country level as well. We have done so in terms of working on internet access, including the digital divide and discriminatory patterns, but also on internet shutdowns. We have worked on strengthening privacy and attracting attention to gaps in relation to data protection. We have supported many governments on different laws, especially when it comes to complicated and complex human rights issues, including hate speech, child abuse, but also disinformation and other human rights considerations. We’ve helped to ensure cultural rights and media freedom online, and also we have started to do some work on injecting human rights in technical standards setting. Of course, we’ve also actively engaged in the IGF and we support the further strengthening of IGF as a vital multi-stakeholder platform. While we have seen a lot of progress, the evolution of technology and the increasing impact on people’s lives and human rights means that we really have to step up to centre human rights for achieving the vision set out in this is to ensure that the diffusion of technology benefits people, planet and human rights. And we therefore urge member states and all other stakeholders to further strengthen human rights action and language in the next phase of the business implementation. This is key because we see a lot of new challenges arising also in this space, including the increasing consolidation of power, technology and expertise within the digital ecosystem, which leads to the growing dependence of governments, civil society, small and medium enterprises, but also people more generally on a small number of technology-fit firms. New and emerging technologies, including AI, so far seem to have exacerbated these trends of market concentration. It is therefore critical to ensure that technology companies respect human rights in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Another challenge is the explosion of data generated by the information society. While this creates many opportunities, it has also made protecting privacy and governing data in the public interest more difficult. At the same time, biases in data and AI are leading to discriminatory outcomes and deepen patterns of pre-existing inequalities. At the other end of the spectrum, we still do not hear too many voices, of course with the fact that one third of the world remains unconnected as the tip of the iceberg. But as we’ve heard from UNESCO also, there are also digital literacy questions that exacerbate the inability to really benefit from the information society. And maybe just to conclude, let me say human rights help us with two things in this landscape. They tell us how to approach these questions of regulation and the shaping of the digital environment by involving the people and hearing those who we would otherwise not hear. But human rights also, with the body of law that has been developed over the last 50, 60, 70 years, gives us some substantive guidance in terms of data protection and privacy. And we look forward to continuing to constructively engage in the process. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, OHCHR, for that intervention. I would now like to invite Maptar Sekh from the UN Economic Commission for Africa. Please, you have the floor. Thank you, Ambassador. Please go ahead. Thank you, Ambassador. Thank you, Ambassador. Good afternoon. Good morning, everyone. In Africa, we have organized in May, in the 13th to 16th May, the Africa Wishes Plus 2020. forum. And during this gathering, we had a lot of discussion on the WSIS action line, the level action line, as well as on the key alignment with the global digital compact, and also some mechanism across the continent. And during this 20 years, over the 20 years of implementation of the WSIS outcome, we have seen a lot of progress in the continent on digital inclusion and connectivity. We come to 2.1% to 38%. It is something very important. And also other initiatives like the African Union Digital Transformation and several continental broadband projects have increased, have contributed to bridge this digital divide across the continent. On policy governance, I’m saying the Internet Governance Forum, launched in the African Internet Governance Forum, launched in 2011 by ECA and African Union, has strengthened multi-stakeholder engagement in the digital economy. We organized the 2025 African IGF last week in Tanzania. I will come back on this. Also in the global digital compact adopted in 2024, it’s the global integrate Africa priority into this digital governance. I think it is something very positive for African continent. In the continent also, we have seen a lot of progress in the curriculum or access to digital literacy in several African countries. The rise of the e-commerce across the continent also, it is an evidence for that. Cyber security, we have several frameworks at the continental level, the Malabo Convention, the ECA guidelines for cyber security, as well as we have now seen a lot of countries adopting an increase in the data protection law, and it is a positive sign for the citizens. And on digital public infrastructure also, we have seen a lot of progress in the continent with this development of digital ID, access to e-government services, and healthcare also as well as financial services. Also another important impact for WSIS, it is now all governments integrate this digital technology in their national political development plan. It is something very positive for this WSIS, however, we have some challenges, key challenges. One it is affordability access, the cost remains very high in the continent. The regulatory also, it is a harmonization of the regulatory, it is something we have to work more, given this emerging technology. Data governance also, it is a minor issue on the continent. And also all this AI and emerging technology blockchain, we need to adopt this technology at the continent. And also cyber security remains a big challenge because we are losing this 10% of our GDP because of cyber security. But fortunately, we have now this GDC, and if we look at the five objectives of the GDC, these five objectives cover all these key challenges faced by African countries. LOME also, we adopted a declaration for a digital transformation in Africa. We have several commitments in terms of how to bridge this digital divide, how to increase the capacity, the digital skills for our youth population, how we can make this information society more inclusive, more important, how we can align WSIS and the GDC and the Internet Governance Forum. It is a great recommendation from Africa to continue to work together between WSIS, Internet Governance Forum, and also the GDC. to make alignment and also to expand the mandate of WSIS for the next 10 years, as well as for the African IGF. But we need a mechanism, a monitoring mechanism for this framework to make sure we reach our target by 2030. It’s very important because this technology can contribute to achieve this sustainable development goal. Also, we adopted last week a declaration in Dar es Salaam for African Internet Governance Forum, highlights the importance of this mystical discussion, very important to advance the digital technology across the continent. Thank you. Thank you very much, Muktar Seck from UNECA for that very, very incisive and insightful intervention. I think this was our last UN agency from the confirmed list of speakers. And we’ll now move to other stakeholder interventions. I thank you. Thank you, Ambassador. Now we’ll continue with other speakers on the list. I would like to invite Mr. Wolfgang Klein-Watscher from University of Aarhus to take the floor. Please, you have the floor. Thank you, Ambassador. And I thank you very much, the co-facilitators, for delivering the roadmap. We have now a timetable. We have milestones. This is a good step in the right direction. However, I see a problem after I have seen the first steps now in this right direction. We had last week the consultations with governments, today with United Nations and non-governmental stakeholders. And I see a risk that if we continue, we will end up in monologues. where stakeholders talk to each other and not together across the stakeholder borders. So a real multi-stakeholder consultation would include both governments and non-governmental stakeholders so that non-governmental stakeholders can comment on proposals made by governments and governments can also react to interventions of non-governmental stakeholders. I think this really a multi-stakeholder dialogue would be need to be organized in the months ahead. So I encourage both the co-facilitators and the president of the General Assembly to come with innovative procedures how to enable this a multi-stakeholder dialogue. I was listening to what the governments had said last week and here are my agreements and disagreements. I agree with the statement of the group of 77 that more has to be done to bridge the digital divide and to avoid an AI divide. I agree with the statement of the European Union to establish a multi-stakeholder sounding board. I agree with the statement from Switzerland to strengthen the role of UNGIS and to add a multi-stakeholder advisory group for UNGIS. I also support to give the IGF a permanent status and to use the Sao Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines as a tool for the further enhancement of multi-stakeholder collaboration. I disagree with the statement of Iran which proposed to put enhanced cooperation into the center of the discussion of business plus 20. I disagree also with the statement of the Russian Federation which criticized the multi-stakeholder approach. And I also disagree with the statement of the United States. which decoupled the SDGs from the WSIS Action Alliance. I have both for my disagreements and agreements a rationale, but this would go beyond my three-minute speaking time. I will send you the full text in writing. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your contribution. I would like briefly to respond to your remark on having member states and stakeholders together. This is an advice that will be reflected later on in the process of the consultation. Of course, we have been also seeing that there are a lot of member states following this discussion today and yesterday as well. I think that we have had the opportunity to listen to each other, but we will come to a more interactive way of exchanging views later on while we are preparing to present the endowment papers and the zero draft. You will also have the opportunity to comment on each other’s views. With that, I would like now to give the floor to Ellie MacDonald from Global Partners Digital. Your Excellencies, colleagues, thank you for this opportunity to share our views. Responding to the guiding questions, we would like to offer three recommendations building on the priorities of the Global Digital Rights Coalition for WSIS. First, in our view, we should address the future challenges by ensuring new technologies are responded to in a human rights respecting way. This means anchoring the interpretation and implementation of the WSIS outcomes in the international human rights framework. Particular attention should be paid to embedding the use of human rights due diligence and impact assessment and formally recognising the role of OHCHR. Second, the review should prioritise preserving the multistakeholder The IGF is a vital component of the WSIS architecture and has shown its enduring value as a forum for collective learning, confidence building and public policy shaping. It should be renewed on a permanent basis, ensuring its sustainability while strengthening its procedures to ensure openness, transparency and accessibility. Third, to achieve the WSIS vision, the Agenda 2030 and the Path for the Future, it is necessary for digital governance to be coherent, meaningfully inclusive and uphold accountability. This can be achieved in part through implementing new global digital frameworks like the Global Digital Compact through the WSIS architecture, benefiting from the distributed approach of the WSIS while ensuring it is enriched by the GDC’s emphasis on human rights-based digital governance. Finally, part of the legacy of the WSIS is its status as a process where stakeholders have shaped cornerstone agreements of internet public policy. To preserve this multi-stakeholder ethos, a cross-stakeholder community of 191 organisations and experts published a five-point plan for an inclusive WSIS plus 20. Building on this, our communities recently also published eight practical recommendations for the review, which include appointing a stakeholder liaison, setting up a centralised online platform, designing accessible consultations, including with respect to the principle of two-way interaction mentioned by the colleague before me, and safeguarding stakeholder input at every stage. We, alongside the endorsers, urge that these recommendations be considered and taken on board. and offer our ongoing support to advise on their adoption. We thank you for your time and stand ready to assist the process. Thank you, Ms. MacDonald, for your contribution. I would like now to invite Mr. Alex Trepikhalin from Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to take the floor. Good morning, Ambassador Janina, Ambassador Locali, Excellencies and esteemed colleagues. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, is a non-profit public benefit corporation that helps ensure a stable, secure, and unified global Internet through our role in coordinating the Internet’s unique identifiers. The Internet is open, interoperable, and coordinated across borders. Its continued stability relies on shared responsibility across stakeholders around the world. That’s the strength of the multi-stakeholder model. It brings together governments, businesses, academia, civil society, and technical communities to address issues collaboratively. We hope that the UN member states will continue to support the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance, as they did during the WSIS in Tunisia, in UNGA Resolution A-70-125, and the Global Digital Compact. This model has proven to be the most effective approach to address Internet policy issues. ICANN’s track record reflects that, for 27 years, we’ve enabled technically grounded, globally coordinated governance of the domain name system. The DNS has scaled to support billions of queries daily, including through crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We have accomplished this by working closely with governments, businesses, civil society, and academic communities, which represent our supporting organizations and advisory committees, as well as other technical organizations, like the Internet Engineering Task Force, Regional Internet Registries, the Internet Society, the World Wide Web Consortium, and many others. The technical community is a distinct stakeholder within the WSIS process. Its role is to continue to develop the Internet and the policies around its technical functioning to serve all people around the world. We hope that the UN member states will continue to recognize this stakeholder group as they did in Tunisia during the WSIS Plus 10 review and in the Global Digital Compact. ICANN contributes to the WSIS process through its technical remit and engagement with all its stakeholders, including the governments that participate in ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee. Our experience shows that sustained collaboration among all stakeholders delivers stability and innovation at scale. At last, the Internet Governance Forum plays a central role in fostering this collaboration. Just last year in the GDC, the UN member states acknowledged the importance of the IGF as the primary multi-stakeholder platform for discussing Internet governance issues. ICANN has supported and continues to support the IGF both financially and through participation in the MAG and the IGF. We are committed to continuing this support for the years to come. We have released a draft paper called the IGF We Want to our WSIS Plus 20 Outreach Network mailing list, and I urge everyone to join the list through the ICANN Government Engagement webpage, where we will be discussing the different versions of the WSIS Plus 20 Zero drafts in the coming months. Thank you. Thank you, Alexei, for your contribution. Now I would like to invite Ms. Valeria Betancourt from the Association for Progressive Communications. You have the floor. Thank you. Thank you very much. The APC is a network of more than 80 organizations located in the Global South who work with digital technologies to improve people’s lives and achieve social, gender and environmental justice. The WSIS vision remains as relevant today as in 2003, while the overall framework remains fit for purpose, we can address evolving challenges by updating action lines, targets and commitments. We believe the elements of the WSIS Plus 20 network are important, and we are committed to continuing to support them. Thank you. This paper should highlight first, digital inequality as the top priority and a precondition for achieving all other WSIS goals. Digital inequality is worsening disparities, unmet connectivity is insufficient, meaningful access is critical in our digital world. Market-led expansion has failed billions and we need innovative financing and enabling regulation for localised solutions such as community-centred connectivity initiatives. Second, environmental justice. Environmental impacts of digital technologies exceed WSIS era expectations. Regular impact assessments with community input must become mandatory throughout digital services and products life cycles. Third, reasserting the public interest in digital and data governance to counter corporate concentration of power and the ways it undermines human rights. Fair taxation and competitive markets are needed to increase the ability of developing countries to benefit from the potential of utilising their own data for development. Fourth, applying the UN’s human rights-based approach to digital governance. Formalised by the UN in 2003, it requires consistent links to all existing rights, economic, social, cultural, civil, political, including specific conventions on the rights of women, children and people with disabilities in digital spaces and governance. Fifth, gender justice through a dedicated action line with gender-specific indicators and targets. Furthermore, enhancing coherence in digital governance requires, in our view, a strengthened, permanent IGF+, with a broader digital governance mandate and a named change that reflects this. Also, an integrated WSIS and global governance model. digital compact implementation, linking the global digital compact objectives to existing WSIS frameworks. In addition, using the IGF and the WSIS forum as platforms for multi-stakeholder digital cooperation and GDC proposed AI and data governance dialogues. Finally, recognizing that the WSIS principles of participation and the multi-stakeholder approach need to be applied consistently in a way that acknowledges and addresses power asymmetries between and within countries, communities and stakeholder groups. This approach is not an alternative to democratic governance but a means to achieve more accountable and inclusive governance at multilateral and multi-stakeholder processes at national, regional and global levels. The APC has engaged with the WSIS since it was originally held and we keep committed with its relevant framework. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. Thank you Ms. Bedancourt for your contribution. I would like now to invite Paloma Lara Castro from Derechos Digitales to take the floor. Hi, thank you. I’m Paloma Lara Castro, Policy Director at Derechos Digitales, a Latin American organization with 20 years of experience working in the intersection of technology and human rights. As we approach the 20-year review of the WSIS, we would like to highlight the critical opportunity this process presents in protecting human rights both online and offline, reducing inequality and mitigating environmental harms. While the WSIS process has contributed significantly to the protection of human rights, for example through its multi-stakeholder model and the creation of the IGF key enablers of human rights in digital age, we believe it can go beyond recognizing structural inequalities such as those related to gender and the dynamics of powers among between the global north and south, considering the private sector’s role, so that digitalization is truly people-centered. As human rights defenders, we urge the WSIS review process to prioritize Strengthening the regulatory architecture frameworks for digital environments grounded in human rights and gender equality Considering emerging and advancing technologies that are reshaping our economies, governance structures, and social interactions Addressing geopolitical dimensions of access to data, infrastructure, and compute for AI is also key Ensuring robust protection for privacy and personal data, particularly considering the widespread of data collection and surveillance practices As well as the advancement of data-based exploitation business models Advancing towards an intersectional and gender-responsive governance for Internet and digital technologies And for that, we highlight the need to move beyond treating gender as a cross-cutting issue But on having a standalone action line on gender, with dedicated funding, indicators, and impact assessments Recognizing the gender divide that involves issues such as bias, lack of representation, and TFGBB It is also urgent to align the WSIS Plus 20 review process with other global processes, like the GDC Following the STD resolution should reduce duplication and ensure maximization of efforts That should be done while guaranteeing meaningful and inclusive participation, especially from Latin America and the Global South Regions still underrepresented in global fora The WSIS coalition has presented important guidelines in this regard, in line with the São Paulo guidelines This is not just about updating the WSIS agenda It is about defending human rights, reducing global asymmetries, and ensuring that the future of digital governance is democratic, inclusive, and sustainable Thank you Thank you, Ms. Castro, for your contribution I would like now to invite Ms. Mona Gabana from Internet Society to take the floor Thank you, Your Excellencies The Internet Society welcomes the opportunity to take part in the first WSIS stakeholder consultation And thanks the co-facilitators for convening this timely stocktaking meeting Established in 1992, the Internet Society is a global non-profit organization with a network that includes nearly 120 chapters, 150,000 individual members, 80 organization members, and 8 special interest groups. Our mission is to promote an Internet that is open, globally connected, secure, and trustworthy, and we collaborate with all stakeholders committed to advancing and strengthening the Internet as one of the strongest enablers of a digital society for everyone. This year marks 20 years since the Tunis World Summit on the Information Society in 2005. Since then, the Internet has evolved rapidly and become central to nearly every part of life—government services, commerce, health, education, communication, and so much more. Achieving the WSIS vision not only depends on access to the Internet, but also on the Internet being open, global, secure, and trustworthy. The Internet gets these properties from the way that it is governed—multi-stakeholder governance, where development, operation, and oversight are shared by a diverse range of actors is key to ensuring that decisions are made in the public interest. When a range of experts can meaningfully participate in developing the solution, we get better answers to global challenges. In the technical community, we share a sense of collective stewardship towards the Internet and the open standards on which its technologies and networks are based. These characteristics fortify stakeholder trust in the way that the Internet is operated and governed. To build our digital future together, the Internet Society calls for the following. Protect and nurture the decentralized and globally connected nature of the Internet that has made it open, secure, and trustworthy. Affirm and continue the implementation of the WSIS Action Lines. Recommit to the multi-stakeholder governance to ensure meaningful participation of all sectors. Support the renewal and continuation of the Internet Governance Forum. Recognize that the Internet Governance Forum has evolved to digital governance of applications and services, while still continuing to provide a common place for discussions concerning the operation and management of Internet infrastructure. Strengthen national and regional IGFs for a local capacity building and collaboration, and finally implement the Global Digital Compact and leverage the internet to achieve the sustainable development goals by 2030. The Internet Society remains committed to supporting the WSIS Plus 20 review and encourages inclusive and effective stakeholder engagement throughout the process as outlined in the Sao Paulo guidelines and the eight practical recommendations as emphasized in the intervention made by Global Partners Digital. I thank you, co-facilitators. Thank you, Ms. Garbella, for your contribution. Now I would like to invite Titi Casa from Agency Pernittalia Digitale. You have the floor. Okay. So thank you. My name is Titi Casa. I’m Head of International Affairs in AGIT and speaking on my personal capacity. First of all, let me congratulate to you as co-facilitator of this important process and thank you for this opportunity to contribute to this important consultation on the implementation of WSIS outcomes. Over the past 20 years, the WSIS framework has been instrumental in advancing universal and meaningful connectivity, reducing digital divides and contributing to the SDG through a human centering, multi-stakeholder and right-based digital transformation. But today we face new and urgent challenges like artificial intelligence, environmental sustainability, gender equality, data governance, misinformation, and while billions still lack meaningful connectivity. So these issues require updated responses, but not necessarily a new framework as the WSIS framework is still relevant as today. And we need to focus and continue the effective implementation of the existing action line without reopening a new action line. But the WSIS plus 20, I think must be more than a milestone. It must be a turning point. We need to strengthen the WSIS plus 20. and to have a more interconnected and more inclusive approach that means aligning the WSIS process with the global digital compact, avoiding duplication and fostering synergies between multilateral cooperation and multistakeholder engagement. The WSIS Plus20 review offers this a key opportunity to reflect on how to adapt and strengthen the current framework to ensure that digital technologies serve all of humanity. So in this context, let me outline some key priorities. First of all, I think we need a coherent unified roadmap that bridges the WSIS Action Line, the SDG, the GDC commitment. This roadmap should focus on closing digital divide, ensuring meaningful connectivity for marginalized communities and also developing countries, and also delivering coordinated action on connectivity, human rights and emerging technologies. Second, I think we should strengthen the ANGIS, including additional relevant UN bodies, and also reinforcing the multistakeholder engagement within it. As third element, I think we must reinforce inclusive, rights-based digital governance. The multistakeholder model as set out in the Tunis Agenda remains essential to keeping the Internet global, open and interoperable. In this context, we need a permanent and better resource in IGF, with sustainable funding and stronger connection to the WSIS framework and the global digital compact. Further, we need that the IGF evolution should be guided by a St. Paolo multistakeholder guidance, which offers a valuable framework to ensure that all actors, government, civil society, private sector, technical community, and youth can contribute meaningfully to an equal footing. So it’s important to have sufficient funding to ensure that participation also of digital actors is maintained. of the developing countries and also of young people in the IJF processes, including the NRIs, the Dynamic Coalition, the Policy Network and all the inter-sectional activities. As a last point, I want to refer to the consultation held last week by Member States and I want to express my strong support for the proposal made by the European Commission to establish a multi-stakeholder sounding board, because I think this mechanism would enhance transparency, inclusiveness and legitimacy in the voices review process and also ensure that all the voices of stakeholders are meaningful and reflected. Thank you. Thank you, Iskassa, for your contribution. I would like now to give the floor to Fiona Alexander from American University. Thank you to the co-facilitators and the team at DESA for organizing this first series of stakeholder consultations for the WSIS Plus 20 review. As a veteran government negotiator throughout the entire five years of the original WSIS process, it’s critical that one of the key achievements of WSIS, the opening up of the room for all to meaningfully engage, is honored and maintained in this all-important anniversary year. Last year’s process around the Global Digital Compact sadly saw a retreat from that open participatory approach, resulting in lingering questions of legitimacy and buy-in of the results. In contrast, it’s heartening to see that the clearer schedule and stakeholder opportunities that have been so far mapped out for the WSIS Plus 20. I encourage you, however, to continue to make these processes more transparent and inclusive and move to a model of true multi-stakeholder discussion, such as that suggested by Wolfgang, so that governments and non-government stakeholders are in the same meetings. With respect to this year’s discussions and ultimate decisions that will find their way into the end-of-year resolution, I offer the following three concrete recommendations. First, it’s well past time for the UN system to fully embrace 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. Second, better outcomes and decisions occur when all perspectives are included. That’s 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. And thirdly, given the lingering concerns around the GDC process, as well as the budget concerns facing the UN system, it is unrealistic to think that the UN can continue to run duplicative processes. Any GDC implementation or follow-up should move into the WSIS framework, either through the annual WSIS forum or the IGF. Thank you for the opportunity to share my views, and I look forward to continuing this conversation. Thank you, Ms. Alexander, for your inputs and your views. I would like now to invite Rodi MacLean from Global Systems for Mobile Communications Association. You have the floor. Thank you very much. The WSIS declaration states that building a people-centered information society is a collaborative effort, which requires cooperation and partnership among all stakeholders. As we take part in this review, it is crucial, as other commenters have said, that the process is open, transparent, inclusive from stakeholders from different sectors. Our shared goal for universal and meaningful connectivity and a people-centered information society will only be realized through effective multi-stakeholder dialogue and collaboration, right through the policymaking process. When it comes to connectivity, we know that while 57% of the global population now access the Internet via mobile broadband, there remain a further 36% of the world’s population who do not have access to the Internet via mobile broadband. This means that we need to be able to build a people-centered information society that who live in the area covered by networks but do not use it. This is referred to as the usage gap and its persistence remains one of the biggest challenges in the implementation of the WSIS process. Our data and research show that people face several barriers to internet adoption and use, including affordability, particularly of handsets and devices, literacy and digital skills, and safety and security concerns. As the review takes place it must refocus multi-stakeholder efforts on addressing these barriers and ensuring that people everywhere can realize the benefits of connectivity. With that said we must also reckon with the challenges of tomorrow. Exponentially rising demand for more data at faster speeds is a trend which shows no sign of letting up and it will surely only intensify with increased rollout and adoption of AI. Today with 5G currently representing just 25% of global network connections, substantial investment is needed to increase the coverage and availability of these high-speed data connections. Even with mobile operators projected to spend 1.5 trillion dollars on network improvements between now and 2030, there still remains a gap between this projected investment and that which we need to increase the availability of 5G and allow governments to realize their digital transformation objectives. If governments are to reap the social and economic benefits of digital technologies they must ensure that a sustainable model is in place to ensure their rollout and adoption. This means addressing market distortions and ensuring that regulatory requirements or other factors do not limit the ability of participants across the internet ecosystem to make sufficient return on investment. To realize the ideals of the information society the right incentives must be in place to promote the long-term growth of the internet and unlock the full potential of connectivity. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. McLean for your intervention and for your input. I would like now to invite Manny and Anastasio Dube from the International Chamber of Commerce. You have the floor. Thank you, Ambassador, and many thanks for the opportunity to share a few thoughts on behalf of the International Chamber of Commerce, the institutional representative of more than 45 million companies in over 170 countries. And thank you also for your efforts in ensuring the WSIS plus Renew Review process remains open and inclusive to the global stakeholder community. We welcome the continuation of such efforts online with recommendations on best practices, such as those shared in the five-point plan for an inclusive WSIS plus Renew Review that the ICC Business Action to Support the Information Society supports. In the interest of time today, please allow me to highlight a few top-level ideas for your consideration. In recent years, substantial progress has been made in implementing the WSIS vision. The private sector has been a pioneer and partner in driving this progress. Businesses invest in transformative digital infrastructure, meaningful connectivity, and accessible digital products and services. Moreover, through capacity-building programs, businesses equip individuals and communities with the necessary digital literacy and technical competencies. Business innovation, tied with the collective contributions of the multi-stakeholder community, is the designated vehicle to drive the WSIS vision into the future. But despite significant progress, recent developments continue to show that the multi-stakeholder model is not embraced or considered by all, indicating continued challenges in extending the benefits to the next billions. In order to achieve the WSIS vision, ICTs must be accessible, affordable, and relevant to the needs of everyone, everywhere. This includes policy frameworks built on stable legal and regulatory grounds, unimpeded global data flows built on trust, and policy frameworks that take a holistic approach across economic, technical, sociocultural, and overarching governance factors. Finally, we urge that the WSIS++20 outcomes establish a more interconnected and inclusive framework for digital governance by integrating the commitments of the Global Digital Compact. We should avoid creating parallel, duplicated processes and instead leverage and strengthen the existing structures within the inclusive and distributed WSIS architecture, including the IGF, which should become a permanent entity with sustainable funding. Many thanks for your attention. The International Chamber of Commerce stands ready to continue to contribute the views of the global private sector as we turn to the next phase of the discussions. Thank you, Meni, for your inputs. I would like now to invite Laura O’Brien from AccessNow to take the floor. Excellencies, colleagues, thank you for this opportunity to contribute to the WSIS plus 20 stakeholder consultation. We thank the co-facilitators for your coordinated efforts. AccessNow is a grassroots to global civil society organization working at the intersection of technology and human rights. We are also a member of the Global Digital Rights Coalition for WSIS, a collective of civil society organizations from the global majority and global north working to advance human rights and multi-stakeholderism in the WSIS plus 20 review process. Our response to the three questions posed today are therefore grounded in the shared priorities of the GDRC WSIS coalition. Over the past 20 years, the WSIS architecture, particularly the IGF, has demonstrated the value of open, inclusive, transparent multi-stakeholder discussions on global internet governance and digital technologies. While the diffusion of digital technologies has created many opportunities, it has also facilitated human rights abuse. Today, targeted surveillance, internet shutdowns, and online censorship continue to prevent people and communities at risk from exercising their rights. The WSIS plus 20 review process serves as a crucial opportunity to collectively review and implement the existing WSIS action lines and outcomes in accordance with international human rights law in order to safeguard against such human rights abuse. We identify three priorities regarding the implementation of WSIS outcomes. First, while WSIS acknowledges human rights, implementation of WSIS outcomes could be strengthened by promoting a human rights-based, people-centric, and multi-stakeholder approach. This includes ensuring that the review and implementation of WSIS action lines and outcomes are anchored in international human rights law, promote rights respecting regulations, and formally recognize the role of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Second, WSIS plus 20 offers an opportunity to renew and strengthen the multi-stakeholder approach to global Internet governance in digital technologies as enshrined in the Tunis Agenda and reaffirmed by the GDC. The São Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines should be promoted and implemented to create more open, transparent, accessible, equitable, and inclusive policymaking at all levels. Finally, we must strengthen the WSIS vision and its institutions, such as the IGF, beyond 2025. This includes ensuring the continued existence, funding, and overall effectiveness of the IGF. The fragmentation of Internet governance and the rise of new digital governance bodies, including on cybercrime, AI, and counter-terror, risk excluding crucial voices. Cooperation through the WSIS mechanisms can enhance coherence in governance by preventing the WSIS institutions from being subsumed into or diluted by other digital governance processes, and ensuring the continued existence and effectiveness of the IGF. New global digital frameworks, such as the GDC, should be implemented through the WSIS architecture to avoid the risk of separate duplicative processes. In conclusion, we would like to revert your attention to the two joint statements mentioned previously by Global Partners Digital. First, the eight practical recommendations for an inclusive WSIS plus 20 review, and second, the five-point plan for an inclusive WSIS plus 20 review. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. O’Brien, for your contribution. I would like now to invite Einar Bolin from American Registry for Internet Numbers. You have the floor. Thank you, Ambassadors, and good day to all. My name is Einar Bolin. I’m the Vice President of Government Affairs at ARIN. Thank you for this opportunity to make a few remarks about who we are and some of the critical Internet services that we provide, namely IPv6 and secure routing. ARIN is a regional Internet registry RIR. Aaron, along with the other four RIRs, work together to actively contribute to an open, stable, and secure internet. Aaron is responsible for the management and distribution of internet number resources, IPv4 and IPv6 address space, and autonomous system numbers in our region. Aaron provides the tools and training to help secure routing through a service called RPKI, resource public key infrastructure. Deployment of RPKI, along with other measures, will help improve internet routing security. The internet also needs the deployment of IPv6. IPv6 is essential to the future growth of the internet. While implementation is well underway throughout the world, it is vital that internet services and applications be available to the entire internet via both IPv4 and IPv6. This means providing online services and content over both protocols. We encourage all organizations to consider deployment of IPv6. Significant progress has been made in connecting the unconnected in the Aaron region with advances to bring information and communication technologies to the entire region. We note substantial progress since the last WSIS review, but recognize there is still significant work ahead in providing critical internet infrastructure and related services to those still unconnected. The continued multi-stakeholder engagement and efforts of governments, the private sector, civil society, and technical communities at FORA, such as the IGF, remain essential to internet discussions and successful WSIS outcomes. That concludes my remarks. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bowling, for your contribution. I would like now to invite to take the floor Ms. Anna Osterling from Article 19. Excellencies, colleagues, thank you for this opportunity. My name is Anna Osserling and I speak on behalf of Article 19, a local to global human rights organization, focusing on free speech and related rights. Given the time limit, I will focus on three core asks for the WSIS Plus 20 review as per the second and third questions for today’s session. One, human rights. Two, multi-stakeholder governance. And three, inclusion. One, human rights. Anchor the WSIS framework in universal human rights and explicitly bolster the role of the OHCHR within WSIS processes. The WSIS framework should explicitly reaffirm all fundamental freedoms, including free expression, free association assembly, rights to privacy and data protection, and rights to equality and non-discrimination, with gender equality at its absolute core. Prioritize combating digital authoritarianism and safeguard against human rights abuses such as surveillance, internet shutdowns, censorship, and attacks on independent media and on civil society. Ensure technology private sector effectively implement their responsibilities as per the UN guiding principles and address market concentration. Support small community and nonprofit operators to offer complementary connectivity for rural and remote communities. And increase digital media and information literacy for all, as set out in the WSIS Plus 10 outcome. Two, multi-stakeholder governance. The WSIS framework should fortify the existing inclusive human rights-based and human-centric multi-stakeholder model of internet governance and further expand across broader digital governance processes. Multi-stakeholder governance ensures a free, open, global, safe, accessible, and interoperable internet. It also assists in promoting universal and meaningful connectivity, closing digital divides, and accelerating sustainable development. We recommend strengthening the current multi-stakeholder model through implementing the Sao Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines. We need a permanent, reinforced, and even more inclusive multi-stakeholder model. of IGF, increasingly integrating with the work of the national and regional IDFs and receiving stable funding. As for the GDC, we support Switzerland’s proposal to develop a joint implementation roadmap, integrating GDC commitments within WSIS implementation work. 3. Inclusion. Inclusion is the heart of the WSIS project. Please listen. Listen to all voices across the globe and integrate their perspectives throughout the review process. To this end, Article 19 has co-authored the eight practical recommendations for an inclusive WSIS plus 20 review, with concrete steps and meaningfully engaged with stakeholders. But it cannot stop in December 2025. Going forward, genuinely integrate into your discussions a wide range of voices, from underrepresented regions and vulnerable communities, to under siege civil society activists, to ensure a more equitable, accessible, transparent, accountable, and context-aware governance frameworks. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Osterling. Now I would like to invite Mr. Giacomo Mazzone from Eurovisione. Thank you very much. Thank you for the kind invitation. I’m the Secretary General of Eurovision, an NGO that is involved in the IGS process since Geneva 203 and participating to all the IGF and WSIS since inception. First of all, congratulations to the ambassadors for the appointment. It’s a hard job. Good luck. But we need you. Because in fact, what we are discussing is a big jigsaw, is a puzzle composed by three elements. And you need to fit the three elements all together. If you are able to fit, then the mechanism will work. If some of the angle would not fit one with the other, we will be in deep troubles. Why? The IGF, with its interstitial activities, with the NRIs, the dynamic coalition, could provide the indispensable needed interaction with civil society, academia and technical community. That’s essential. Without that, there is no digital transition. The WSIS follow-up led by the ITU and UNESCO could ensure the link with UN agencies is already well established. It works since 20 years and with the industry. But the GDC process gave to all these processes the legitimacy within the UN General Assembly and in the relationship with the governments. These three processes need each other in order to be well functioning. If we agree on this picture, I think that, as others before me have said, it’s indispensable to arrive to a unified roadmap, as proposed by the Space Delegation, with a clear share of duties and missions among all these processes. A process that needs to become permanent under the San Paolo guidelines, under the UN umbrella, that has some principles on which it could be based. It has to be human rights-centered, data protection, all the rights need to apply to the digital space, fight against disinformation, because disinformation is something that could derail democracy and is a very big danger that we need to face. Ensuring media integrity, as the G20 has recognized in its last meeting and documents. Ensuring meaningful access. Addressing digital inequality. But there is a point that we have not to forget. We need to link this process also to the processes that are already mentioned in the Summit for the Future. This is addressing the climate change issues and the disaster risk prevention. Technology, artificial intelligence, are absolutely indispensable if we want to protect our world and environment. So we need to bring this other organization together. these other aspects into the process and of course anti-concentration rules because we don’t want a world led by companies but a world led by humans as you suggested at the beginning. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Mazzone for your contribution. I would like now to invite Konstantinos Komaitis from Atlantic Council. Thank you Ambassador. I would also like to thank you and Ambassador Locale for facilitating this process. My name is Konstantinos Komaitis and I’m a resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Democracy and Tech Initiative. Today I speak in my personal capacity. In 2005 I was in Tunis for the second phase of WSIS and since then I have followed closely its evolution. Over the past two decades the aspiration for a people-centered inclusive and development-oriented information society has undeniably advanced yet its realization remains uneven. Significant progress has been made. Digital technologies have become more accessible enabling transformative improvements in education, healthcare, governance and economic opportunity. The proliferation of mobile connectivity and digital services has empowered millions bridging gaps in access and voice. However disparities persist. Nearly 2.6 billion people remain offline predominantly in the global south highlighting a digital divide that increasingly mirrors and amplifies existing inequalities. Today the priorities for implementing WSIS outcomes are twofold equity and resilience. First we must ensure equitable access to digital infrastructure, digital literacy and meaningful connectivity. Second as technologies evolve rapidly we must develop resilient rights-based governance frameworks that safeguard human dignity, privacy and other democratic values. Yet challenges remain profound. Fragmentation of digital governance, data monopolies, misinformation, cyber insecurity and the weaponization of digital tools are growing threats to the inclusivity and development orientation which is envisioned. At the same time, governance is increasingly fragmented, mainly due to geopolitical tensions and the lack of collaboration. Efforts to maintain an open, interoperable and global Internet are under strain. In this context, supporting and strengthening the multi-stakeholder model is crucial, and the São Paulo Multi-Stakeholder Guidelines provides a useful reference. Multi-stakeholder dialogue can help establish shared norms, reduce policy fragmentation and build trust. The implementation of the GDC should be anchored in the multi-stakeholder process and the community of the Internet Governance Forum. To this end, the IGF must be safeguarded. For 20 years, the IGF has stood as a resilient platform for multi-stakeholder governance. While other processes have faltered, the IGF has endured. It has provided a safe and inclusive space for stakeholders from around the world to engage in dialogue on complex and often contentious issues. It is a living expression of the WSIS spirit. After December, the IGF must emerge stronger with a renewed commitment to its sustainability, both financial and political. In conclusion, I would like to remind everyone that the WSIS vision remains as relevant as ever. Unlike the GDC, which was done primarily by states and for states, WSIS stands as a testament to the power of multi-stakeholder collaboration and a reminder that the Internet and digital technologies exist first and foremost to serve people. As you move forward, I would encourage you to promote meaningful and fully transparent multi-stakeholder participation by ensuring that all stakeholders are equally and concurrently involved. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kometis, for your contribution. I would like now to invite, to take the floor, Mr. Julian Casabuenas from Colnodo. Thank you very much for this opportunity. Colnodo has actively participated in the WSIS process committed to building an inclusive, equitable and development-oriented information society. Based on our experience over the past 30 years, year supporting community networks, digital rights, and meaningful access to technology in Colombia, we offer the following reflections. Over the past two decades, we have seen important advancements in connectivity or recognition of access to the internet as a fundamental enabler of rights and increased awareness of the role of digital technologies in achieving sustainable development. However, despite this progress, the vision of a people-centered and inclusive information society remains only partially realized, particularly for communities in rural, remote, and marginalized areas. We have confirmed that genuine inclusion goes beyond infrastructure. It requires community-empowered local ownership of networks, digital skills, and policy environments that enable bottom-up solutions. The recognition of community networks as legitimate actors in the ecosystem has been a key step forward, but more needs to be done to reflect this vision consistently in national and global digital strategies. The digital divide persists not only in terms of connectivity but also regarding affordability, digital skills, locally relevant content, and meaningful participation in digital government processes. Among the current priorities are closing the urban-rural connectivity gap by supporting community-driven models of access, bridging gender and intersectional digital divides, ensuring that women, indigenous peoples, and marginalized groups benefit equitably from digital development, protecting digital rights, including privacy, freedom of expression, and the right to participate in shaping digital policies, ensuring that digital transformation supports sustainable development goals, particularly in education, health, and economic inclusion. A major challenge remains the gap policy commitments and effective implementation, especially at the local level. Cooperation through the WSIS process, sustained multistakeholder dialogue, the IGF and now the Global Digital Compact offers a vital opportunity to strengthen coherence, avoid fragmentation and place people needs at the center of digital governance. We believe that multistakeholder approach must prioritize inclusion and local communities and civil society organizations that work directly with affected populations, particularly from the Global South. The WSIS process, the IGF and the GDC should complement each other, reinforcing commitments to universal meaningful connectivity and aligning with human rights frameworks. Transparent, inclusive and accountable governance mechanisms are needed to ensure the commitments translate into concrete actions that close digital gaps and foster sustainable community driven development. Colnado remains committed to working with global, regional and local partners to advance this vision of an information society that truly empowers people, leaving no one behind. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Casabuenas, for your contribution. I invite now Mr. Julian Drake from Columbia Institute for Teleinformation. You have the floor. Thank you very much to the co-facilitators and DESA for giving stakeholders the opportunity to speak here today. As others have said, hopefully in the future there’ll be chances for direct interaction with governments as we had during the Tunis phase and as we have in multistakeholder institutions. Regarding substantive issues, given the new geopolitical and budgetary realities, I hope we can take on board the hard lessons learned 20 years ago and limit the time that we’re going to spend relitigating. internet governance, enhanced cooperation, and issues like that, and instead focus on the zone of possible agreement around reaffirming the Tunis agenda and so on. New issues relating to DPI, digital governance, AI, I would suggest should be handled incrementally within the existing action lines and resources rather than trying to negotiate expansive new mandates that could cause extensive debate and problems. I would suggest also that the IGF should be given permanent mandate and that we should clarify that the GDC should be fully integrated into the WSIS process, which enjoys broader support. Regarding institutional and procedural issues, I’d like to strongly support the suggestions made in the five-point plan coordinated by the Global Digital Rights Coalition referred to earlier. It’s great that we’re able to do this via Zoom and so on, but at the same time we still fall quite short of actually multi-stakeholder engagement as practiced in other institutional environments that matter for global digital governance, and I hope we can make further progress in trying to up the game of the United Nations in this respect. I would in particular flag the plan’s suggestion about reforming the accreditation process with regard to eligible stakeholders. Right now it’s very difficult for those of us who are individuals who are actively participating in other multi-stakeholder processes to engage fully in these kinds of environments where you have to be a member of an accredited organization or professional staff, etc. Work could be done there. Secondly, I’d say also that I support the Swiss WSIS Plus proposal for expanding the role of UNGIS and creating a multi-stakeholder steering group and making the CSTD more effectively multi-stakeholder. And lastly, I would say that we should think expansively about Action Line 1 and try to consider fully how to improve the mechanisms and multi-stakeholder participation in international processes. Multi-stakeholder organizations are learning organizations that are continually improving their processes and adapting to new circumstances. UN processes are fairly stagnant in comparison, notwithstanding the proclamations in the GDC about reinventing multilateralism, etc. We need to reinvent the relationship between stakeholders and intergovernmental processes and learn how to do these things more effectively. Some of the suggestions have been made by the EU and others, I think should be given full consideration in that regard. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Drake, for your contribution. I would like now to invite Miss Miriam Koehler from Deutsche Welle Academy to take the floor. Yes, hello everyone and thank you very much for this opportunity to speak and for the rich debate. My name is Miriam Koehler. I work with GW Academy, the media development wing of German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Together with our partners, we support building diverse and independent media ecosystems in over 70 global majority countries worldwide. Human rights and freedom of expression are at the core of our mandate and of course the Wyss process is of course highly relevant to what we do. Many important points have been made already, so I’ll try to keep it short. We believe that media has an important role to play in realizing the Wyss’s goals as well as the sustainable development goals in peaceful societies more generally. Action Lion 9 specifically has enabled journalism to support pluralism and inclusion. Today’s challenges such as misuses of AI and global disinformation campaigns cannot be resolved without strong media systems. It is therefore of paramount importance that Action Lion 9 be not only preserved but also strengthened. Moreover, Given the importance of media freedom as an enabling right, media perspectives should not just be confined to one action line. Rather, they should be embedded across all WSIS action lines. Action lines C2, C5 and C10 all impact media, and therefore cross-collaboration between lines should be ascertained. We support others in noting that WSIS should firmly be anchored in international human rights law, including express mention of the role of the OHCHR. And like others, we also underline that WSIS should remain the primary forum for digital governance, and the multi-stakeholder model should be upheld. New mechanisms like the Global Digital Compact should be implemented through the WSIS architecture, not duplicated. Lastly, the IGF should be reaffirmed and strengthened, including through stable funding. To conclude, we believe that public interest media are essential for the realization of the WSIS mandate, and we look forward to contributing to the WSIS process as it evolves. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Kuller, for your intervention and for your remarks. I would like now to invite Mr. Mark Carvel from European Dialogue on Internet Governance to take the floor. Thank you very much for giving me the floor, and hello, everybody. It’s been a great session to hear so many views. Eurodig is the European Regional Internet Governance Forum for multi-stakeholder discussion and the exchange of ideas on emerging issues and challenges, which is open to active participation of governments and regulators. So many governments do take advantage of the opportunity to engage with stakeholders through this forum. Eurodig is one of 176 national and regional Internet Governance Forum which have emerged in all regions since the global IGF was established. by the WSIS in 2005. That figure of 176 is remarkable testimony to the critical value of multi-stakeholder process launched by the WSIS all those years ago and has been a robust and sustainable approach ever since. EUDIG has held an annual multi-stakeholder event in a different European country every year since its inception in 2008. This year’s annual EUDIG event was hosted by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in May with 700 registered on-site and online participants from 103 countries actually, so actually our reach goes beyond the European region per se. The program included a main session entitled why the WSIS plus 20 review matters and how national and regional IGFs can enhance stakeholder participation and we thank you Miss Janina very much for your contribution to that session. EUDIG has published on its website the following five messages based on the broad consensus expressed by stakeholders in that session in Strasbourg and we wish to communicate these to national delegations as an input into the WSIS plus 20 review. The first message EUDIG stakeholders welcome the updating by co-facilitator Miss Sorelle Janina yourself on the opportunities for meaningful stakeholder participation in the review, meaningful, which will ensure its legitimacy. So meaningfulness means legitimacy. EUDIG stands ready to contribute as a channel for inputting key issues and for establishing the necessary momentum for achieving the right outcomes with a forward-looking agenda. EUDIG recommends that all stakeholder inputs and proposals be included on the UN’s official record. Second EUDIG message The Internet Governance Forum is a fundamental platform for multi-stakeholder cooperation globally and should be granted a renewed permanent mandate. The IGF needs to implement the substantive improvements expressed during the open consultations on WSIS, including enhancing its inclusivity and ensuring outcomes lead to action. Third UDIG message, the WSIS plus 20 review process should be conducted in a transparent, inclusive and diverse manner, or a multi-stakeholder approach is key to achieving this. The upcoming action plan should align with the sustainable development goals and the priorities for action set out in the global digital compact. Fourth message, the WSIS plus 20 review should address new and still existing socio-technological and economic challenges such as the north-south digital divide and gender inequalities, human-centric AI regulation, climate change, human rights online and maximizing diverse stakeholder participation in the global digital economy from all regions. Fifth message, national and regional IGFs are important and powerful engines for the bottom-up and multi-stakeholder approach and therefore should be actively included in the review process. National and regional initiatives are fundamental in providing national perspectives and mechanisms for policy adoption. UDIG looks forward to continuing to be engaged in the review process and subsequently as a channel for European stakeholders to contribute information, recommendations and proposals drawing on its extensive network in the European region and on its long experience as a forward-looking inclusive forum which focuses on current priorities and emerging issues in the digital environment. Thank you for your attention. from Global Forum for Media Development, take the floor. Thank you and good day, Your Excellencies, organizers, for this opportunity to speak on behalf of Global Forum for Media Development, a global network of more than 200 media development and journalism support organizations. Over the past 20 years, WSIS has been instrumental in supporting and promoting people-centered and inclusive digital society, and despite so many challenges, it remains a multi-stakeholder driven process. And this is also even more important in the context of the media and information society, where we are all witnessing the challenges of digital repression and tech-facilitated harms, coupled with a shrinking civic space and media funding, now really threaten the survival of news media and professional journalism. And therefore, the WSIS remains vital, but also needs to evolve to address these new realities. As previously mentioned, Global Digital Rights Coalition Five-Point Action Plan and the follow-up eight recommendations, practical recommendations, should actually really serve us as a map in this process, and GF&D was very lucky to be able to endorse them in involving them in the drafting process. Addressing priorities and challenges today means addressing digital governance comprehensively. For our core mission, for us our core mission, but also aligned with the overarching principles of the WSIS framework, is to secure digital governance and digital public infrastructure that enable journalism as a public good. To achieve this, the emphasis needs to be put equally on securing safe and accountable digital government, but also supporting media independence, media sustainability and protecting journalism. Put simply, the key priority is to preserve principle 55 and the corresponding action line 9. But let’s also ensure that the review process takes due consideration of the media-related issues that spread across different lines, like the one on infrastructure or cybersecurity, and then GF&D has worked on the elements of these intersection points and the media more particularly, and we are eager to share this document with you and further involve in the process. Finally, the GDC commitments should be grounded in the existing WSIS architecture as already mentioned before. In the context of the media looking more specific, GDC commitment for example 33 and the WSIS action line 9, C9 on the media, are already aligned to a large extent. This alignment should be explicitly recognized and emphasized in the WSIS review process. This means reaffirming WSIS plus 20 as the central multi-stakeholder digital governance space and reinforcing mechanisms such as Internet Governance Forum to ensure transparency and inclusive participation. To conclude, media and journalists are more than stakeholders in the digital governance space as we all know. They are also enablers of democracy, which provides access to reliable, timely and public interest information. Thank you so much for this opportunity. Thank you, Boyana, for your contribution. I would like now to invite Mr. Jimson Olufuye from Contemporary Consulting to take the floor. Thank you very much. Greetings, Your Excellencies and all. My name is Jimson Olufuye. I’m the Principal Consultant at Contemporary Consulting Limited, an IT firm based in Abuja, Nigeria. We have been involved in the WSIS process since 2003. Through Contemporary, I’ve had the privilege of founding AFICTA in 2012. I’m currently the Chair of the Advocacy Council of AFICTA. AFICTA itself is a concerned private sector-led alliance of ICT associations, companies and professionals across Africa. We started with six countries, but now in 43 African countries. AFICTA is an outcome of the WSIS, as the African private sector’s response to the vision of the WSIS for a people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented information society. Our vision is the fulfillment of the promise of the digital age for everyone in Africa. I’ve had the privilege of serving in the CSTD working groups on the improvement of IGF, Enhanced Cooperation, and the United Nations Secretary General’s Mark. AFICTA collaborates with UNECA, doing a fantastic job in Africa, and AU and other stakeholder groups across Africa to advance the WSIS vision. We believe the WSIS has prospered our world in all aspects of life, with the Geneva Declaration on Action Lines and Targets and the Tunis Agenda on IGF, which has become a veritable platform for capacity development on the digital, networking, sharing of best practices, and involving new businesses, etc. As a matter of fact, the WSIS’s efforts in fostering access, connectivity, and multistakeholder engagement have added more than $10 trillion to the global economy. So over the past 15 years, the WSIS vision has served our world well. We know that the annual WSIS reviews are mostly handled by the Regional Economic Commission in their regions, like UNECA. There is a need for in-country annual review as SDGs 2030 target approaches. Therefore, we urge states who are yet to operationalize annual WSIS Forum to do so in conjunction with IGF, Enhanced Cooperation, and the GDC, that the annual WSIS Forum be reviewed with the WSIS Action Line and Targets, IGF outcomes, and the GDC objectives in view of the expectation on the Sustainable Development Goals. Contemporary consider Artificial Intelligence as an e-application. As such, it can be appended to WSIS Action Line C7, along with the other e-application, or to be taken as part of the e-application without any other addition. We propose that the mandate of the IGF be renewed for another 10 years or may permanent with the union system. We also believe that while the IGF part of this agenda is fully operational, Enhanced Cooperation, paragraph 67, is already operational in the UN Commission for Science and Technology for Development, and in other forums like ICANN. As such, shared cities should be documented as a is the primary home of enhanced cooperation. And finally, the Global Data Compact, which is an annex of the future, the path for the future, is a derivative of WSIS, and as such should be reviewed during the WSIS IGF and CEC meeting. Therefore, in-country SDD offices should be part of the discussion processes going forward. Finally, finally, in addition, the process of engagement on WSIS Matter should reflect the San Paolo multistakeholder statement, which provided guidelines for meaningful multistakeholder engagement. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you, Mr. Olufoye, for your contribution. I would like now to invite Paula Otegui from Latin America and Caribbean Network Information Center. Paula, you have the floor. Thank you, Chair, co-facilitators. Hello, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of LACNIC, the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Address Registry, a non-profit association formed by a community of more than 12,000 associated entities, members, in a coverage area of 33 territories. Our function is to allocate and manage internet numbers resources, contributing to the development of the internet in the region through an active policy of cooperation. As members of the internet technical community, we have been actively involved in this process. We consider WSIS Plus 20 as a key opportunity to reaffirm and update global commitments for digital inclusion. Before moving on to the concrete opportunities that this process offers, we would like to underline that the success of the internet is based on its founding principles of open standards and collaboration. In this regard, it is essential to recognize the role of the technical community and its operational expertise for implementing policies and protocols that ensure the functionality and interoperability of the internet. Some ways in which the WSIS plus 20 outcomes can drive sustainable socio-economic development in Latin America and the Caribbean and the world are an open, stable, secure and global Internet. It is imperative to advocate for an Internet without fragmentation and operating under open, secure standards developed by the global community. Strengthening the multi-stakeholder model, it is necessary to ensure the representation and active participation of all sectors, including the technical community, in decision-making processes on the digital future. Also, strengthen the role of the Global Internet Governance Forum as a key platform for inclusive Internet policy dialogue and an enabling space for all voices in global debate on the future of Internet. Meaningful access, not just connectivity, Internet access must be of quality, secure and useful, allowing free access to content and promoting digital skills and relying on standards that provide stability and security, such as IPv6 and RPKI. In this context, we at LACNIC reaffirm our commitment to a global, open, stable, secure Internet that serves sustainable development. Our contributions will continue to focus on strengthening technical participation in regional and global spaces, collaborating with all actors under the multi-stakeholder model, encouraging the active participation of our region in global debates, continuing the dialogue with governments, bringing evidence, experience and learning from our daily practice. So, we deeply value this space for exchange and collaborative construction. Thank you very much. Thank you, Fauna, for your inputs. I would like now to invite Alisha Sharif from Technical Community Coalition for Multistakeholderism. You have the floor. Thank you your excellency and hello everyone. My name is Alisha and I’m speaking on behalf of the Technical Community Coalition for Multistakeholderism which is a group of aligned members of the internet technical community with a long history of involvement in multi-stakeholder internet governance. We appreciate the opportunity to participate in this stakeholder consultation and reiterate our thanks to the President of the General Assembly, the co-facilitators, the Secretariat for all the preparations thus far in the review process and thanks also to all the previous speakers for their interesting and diverse contributions. My comments focus on the third of the guiding questions for today’s interventions but before I move to that I want to briefly acknowledge four things. One, that many more people around the world are participating in the information society than were doing so 20 years ago and that is a success. Two, that despite this much remains to be done to bridge complex and diverse digital divides so that all can participate. Three, that since the original WSIS summit the internet has been a key infrastructure for enabling the information society and crucial to the development of societies, economies, communities and culture all around the world. And four, that the multi-stakeholder model has been and remains integral to the internet’s continued development and success. Our role as members of the internet’s technical community is to operate the infrastructure that supports the internet’s availability. We see an open, free, global, secure, resilient and interoperable internet as a crucial foundation for human development, innovation and progress. Ongoing engagement by all constituents of the multi-stakeholder model, governments, the private sector, academia, civil society and the technical community help us find common ground and move forward as we have new technologies and governance challenges. As such, through this review we urge member states to first ensure that the review itself remains genuinely open to and inclusive of stakeholders input. The Sao Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines offer a proposed approach to digital governance and deliberative dialogue which we strongly support. Second, to ensure that the role of the IGF is maintained and ideally that it becomes a permanent feature of the UN system with better resources to allow it to function more effectively and inclusively. A critical component that is missing in the wider digital governance landscape is a multi-stakeholder agenda setting function and we believe that the IGF could fulfill this, in turn aiding the development of a governance agenda for the global internet governance and digital policy landscape. Third, acknowledge that there is a level of complementarity between the GDC and WSIS, but also a level of overlapping coverage. We would advise against duplicating or proliferating governance fora because proliferation disadvantages all stakeholders except the best resourced. And fourth and finally, to acknowledge that any additional resources should be used to support broader and more diverse participation in existing institutions and processes. The ecosystem of intersessional work, for example through the national and regional initiatives, policy networks, best practice fora and dynamic coalitions, could be better utilized to follow up on implementation and generate outputs. The full list of organizations that are on to this statement, which currently stands at 24, will shortly be available on tccm.global. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Sherif, for your contribution. I would like now to invite Mr. Mohamed Farahat from the IGF. and AFIGF to take the floor. Thanks, Excellency, and good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everyone. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak. I’m Mohamed Farhat, I’m a member, a member of African IGF, and also I’m a member of CSTD, Working Group on Data Governance. My presentation today is on my personal capacity. I will proceed from the view that the GDC constitutes a very early foundation document for document technology and digital life. GDC addressed three main issues, internet governance, data governance, and AI governance, which admits the concerns of fragmentation and duplication between WACES process, IGF process, and the new expected bodies established by GDC, particularly Global Dialogue on AI Governance and maybe another platform as maybe as most of you know, that CSTD Working Group on Data Governance now it’s working to develop a report about data governance within GDC. So maybe one of the recommendation will come from the Working Group to establish a new platform focused on data governance. So in this time, we’ll have three platforms. So my intervention aim, my intervention aims principally to stress the importance of focus on the coordination mechanism between IGF and expected AI Governance Dialogue platform will be established. Or, and as I mentioned, maybe the other new platforms or process maybe appear in the future. I think the problem, the question is not, of course, we recognize that the concern of fragmentation. but I think the question is not of a lot of processes and a lot of platforms, but I think the question is how to manage the intersectionality and the cross-cutting issue between all the processes. The main concern of the presentation, I think from my point of view, would disappear if we have reached to the coordination mechanism between all these processes. To conclude, the focus discussion on coordination mechanism should be started between IJF voices and facilitators of processes to establish a global dialogue on AI governance. And I recommend to establish coordination committee between the three platforms or three processes of global IJF and the new bodies will be established within the GDC and to coordinate the contribution and intervention of each platform in the digital ecosystem. Lastly, I recommend to merge between IJF and WESIS to make IJF or Internet Governance, all the process of Internet Governance be under IJF because as all the colleagues mentioned that Internet Governance is one of the result of WESIS. So I think we need to think about or to ask ourselves to what extent we can make a merging between Internet Governance form and WESIS process to be all managed under IJF. And I agree with all my colleagues’ intervention about we have to keep on that IJF and we have to support and strengthen in our eyes because it’s very fundamental to governing AI, sorry, governing Internet. So we need to have work with the three components of AI governance, data governance and Internet Governance. We need to like just make the umbrella, what’s the umbrella, how to go on. Thank you Mr. Farhad for your contribution. I would like now to invite Mr. Abdel Jalil Bashar Van from House of Africa. Bashar Van Thank you so much dear excellency, dear chair. Thank you for this opportunity on behalf of House of Africa, a dedicated member of civil society stakeholder community from Chad, from Global South and also in the name of Chad IGF, our organization is committed to promote access internet, equitable access of internet in Africa. As we reflect on the outcome of the WSIS, it is critical to recognize the significant contribution made by the diverse stakeholder and civil society used in achieving the connectivity and the capacity building objective outlined in WSIS action lines. We have tireless advocate for inclusive digital policy that empower marginalized community and enhance local governance. In the past year, we have seen remarkable progress in internet accessibility Africa with increasing initiative aim at bridging the digital divide. However, this is still much work to be done to ensure that all the voices are heard and represented in the digital landscape. We believe that updated WISIS framework is essential to the continued development of inclusive Internet. We recommend the following area for consideration. Defining digital governance and cooperation. There should be clear and complemented understanding of digital governance framework. It is vital that we leverage strength across various initiatives without duplication effort. We need GDC, we need IGF, also we need WISIS for more impact and also more collaboration. Second point is strengthening the role of IGF. We need sustainable resourcing. Financing for the Internet Governance Forum is critical to have a movement that renews a permanency. It is multicultural approach which allow for the bottom-up agenda setting must be maintained and supported. More funding for the multilingual resources for more impact. Initiatives such like African IGF for the case of Africa, like National IGF, like case of Chad. And also we need more School of Internet Governance to give more capacity for the people. Provide essential platform for the local dialogue and should be our priority. National, regional and youth initiative. We call and our languages NRIs give us more voice for each one of the community member to contribute and to shape the Internet that we needed. And also to connect the inconnect people for the Maririya area. Number three is to provide inclusivity. The WISIS plus 20 review process in GDC must remain open, inclusive, allowing all stakeholders, particularly from civil society, to engage in meaningful discussion. The Sao Paulo Multicultural Guidelines can serve as valuable reference. for fostering such inclusivity. Number four, at the end, recognize the civil society roles is imperative to analyze civil society, including organization and African-American like organization as distinctive vital school holder and the internal governors. Our unique perspective is to advocate effort is essential to ensure that internet serve the need of all the communities. Thank you for attention and support is a building more inclusive, equitable, digital for our future. Internet works because the multicultural there works. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Blanc for your contribution. I would like now to invite Michel Zanga-Glinze from Consortium d’Appli aux Actions pour la Promotion et le Développement de l’Afrique. Vous avez la parole. Distinguished participant, esteemed panelists, the Consortium for Support to Action for the Promotion and Development of Africa, CAPDA, would like to be comment this strategy which is plus 20 consultation. This mark of this is a step in sharing the global digital future and in researching a fundamental demand for digital technology to fully serve the aspiration, reality and potential of the Africa continent. Through this tool to this mission, CAPDA advocate for safe, inclusive and resilient digital Africa where technology isn’t a distant promise but a concrete level for employment, share property and social justice. Africa overflow with talent, energy and innovation. However, very inequality in access particularly in rural area, risk of depending social and economic divide if not decisively addressed. A large part of women and produce. with potential to reside in those overlooking territory. To this end, CABDA identified five essential pillars to give this digital transformation resulting with the purity of WSIS plus 20. First, universal equitability and affordability connectivity, especially in rural areas. Urban asset must not longer but luxury reserved for urban center. It’s imperative to implement proactive investment policy coupled with including policy model to ensure that every village, every remote area can be connected to the digital world. Second, digital skill tailored to the need of territory and population. Third, robust security and a trust digital space. So yeah, a resilient digital Africa rests on a secure environment. This demands strength, our legal framework for civil security and data protection, investing in national technical practicing and promoting a culture of digital vision. Through the connecting of certain digital ecosystem. Four, innovation driven by African need and talent. CABDA call for increasing support for digital initiative designed by and for Africa. In response to local challenge, smart agriculture, digital health in the remote area, online education, inclusive financial, the great democracy and so on and so on. Five, open, inclusive and truly multistakeholder internet governance. Digital governance must remain open, transparent and collaborative. The multistakeholder model is a necessary. not an option in ensuring that African voices, including those from rural communities, youth, women and civil society fully participate in sharing digital policy, both national and globally. CABDA reiterates its commitment to work with all partners, government, private sector, civil society, parliamentary and international institutions to build a more equitable, human and sustainable digital future. We call for a structural partnership, catalytic financing and solid cooperation between public and private sector to make digital technology not just a tool, but a true catalyst for structural transformation across the continent. Together, let’s make digital a pillar of sovereignty, social cohesion and property for Africa. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you, Mr. Chong and Lindsay for your contribution. I would like now to invite to take the floor Ilona Hickok from Global Network Initiative. Hello, your excellency, and thank you for this opportunity to provide comments. My name is Ilona Hickok and I’m the Managing Director at the Global Network Initiative. We are a multi-stakeholder initiative working towards responsible business conduct in the tech sector. We have over 100 members globally and we bring together companies, civil society, investors and academics. We believe that the principles envisioned, outlined in the Geneva Declaration Principles and Tunis Agenda remain relevant today, but face renewed challenges. This includes deepening of digital divides by AI, new tactics for surveillance, and overly broad state actions impacting freedom of expression, such as internet shutdowns. We also believe that the implementation of WSIS should advance regional and international cooperation. national and local priorities. Key priorities include ensuring universal, affordable internet access, especially for rural, remote, and underserved populations, supporting the development of rights-respecting digital public infrastructure ecosystems, reaffirming and ensuring the private sector adheres to the UNGPs, understanding the impact of conflict on human rights and achieving the SDGs, understanding the risks to achieving the SDGs that disproportionate surveillance practices pose, including surveillance powers enabled through broad cybercrime regulation and efforts, ensuring a human rights-based approach to the governance of AI, inclusive data governance, and the impact of AI on the digital divide, and addressing the impact that shrinking civic space has on the achievement of the SDGs. For effective WSIS implementation, we believe that there is a need for a commitment to WSIS at the international, regional, national, and local levels. Adequate resourcing, localized metrics, and robust reporting mechanisms are necessary to facilitate this. The WSIS Plus 20 review should, one, reaffirm commitments to people-centered digital developments. It should renew the mandate of the IGF and establish it as a permanent mechanism. In doing so, it should strengthen and streamline regional and national IGFs. It should ensure multi-stakeholder approaches to internet governance that embody the principles of multi-stakeholderism, as articulated in the Sao Paulo Guidelines. It should enable robust engagement with civil society and the technical community, as articulated in the Five-Point Plan and the eight recommendations by the Global Digital Rights Coalition. And it should streamline digital cooperation efforts, including by integrating the GDC into the WSIS implementation. In particular, we see opportunity for this around areas of connectivity, with a focus on blended financing mechanisms and accessible and affordable access. Data Governance, with a focus on ensuring data governance frameworks are grounded in international human rights standards, empower the end user, and further catalyze the use of data for achievement of the SDGs. Rights Respecting Digital Public Infrastructure Digital Inclusion, with a focus on technology transfer and facilitating North-South and South-South Triangular Cooperation Information Integrity and Disinformation and AI Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Hickok, for your contribution. Now I’d like to invite Elina Walshink from Microsoft to take the floor. Thank you, Ambassador. And at the outset, I would like to thank both co-facilitator teams for their deep commitment to open an inclusive WSIS++20 review process and recognition of multi-stakeholder approach as the core characteristic of WSIS. Over the past two decades, the importance of the WSIS vision has grown significantly, largely influenced by the increasing role of digital technologies in our societies and in our daily lives. The focus on connectivity, digital skills, and access to technologies has intensified as the digital divide remains a pressing issue. Stakeholders, including Microsoft, recognize WSIS as the critical process to ensure that digital transformation benefits people across the world. The multi-stakeholder governance model has proven to be essential in advancing digital policy discussions and enabling broad participation. A key success has been the recognition that the technical foundation of the Internet is best managed through multi-stakeholder institutions. One major priority for WSIS today is reinforcing the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance. Another priority is integrating a stronger human rights approach. to digital governance. Challenges include the rapid evolution of digital technologies, which require adaptable governance frameworks without compromising continuity. While some may advocate for new business action lines, Microsoft believes that existing frameworks are flexible enough to incorporate emerging digital trends. Business mechanisms continuously enhance digital governance by bringing together diverse perspectives and fostering consensus building. The IGF plays a vital role in creating an open forum where stakeholders from various backgrounds can collaborate on digital policy challenges. We believe that WSIS Plus 20 Review presents an opportunity to reaffirm the commitment to digital governance frameworks that prioritize inclusion, human rights, and sustainable development. Ensuring coherence between WSIS principles and new frameworks, such as the Global Digital Compact, will be key to strengthening governance models moving forward. In conclusion, I would like to reaffirm Microsoft’s commitment to remain engaged throughout the WSIS Review process and hope that this is the first of several conversations to come. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Wabowska, for your contribution. And with you, we have concluded the speaking list, but we see that there are some colleagues that would like to take the floor and I would encourage everyone, if any one of the participants would like to take the floor, just raise your hand at the screen, please. And I will invite now Jacqueline Trevisan-Pigato from Data Privacy Brazil to take the floor. Thank you very much, Your Excellencies. My name is Jacqueline Pigato. I represent Data Privacy Brazil, an organization that is part of the Global South Alliance, the Global Digital Justice Forum, and the Global Digital Rights Coalition for WSIS. I would like to emphasize a few- brief points that my colleagues have already raised, such as the permanent mandates and funding for the IGF, as its coordination with regional and national IGFs, the incorporation of the GDC into the WSIS framework, and the effective implementation of the multi-stakeholder guidelines from the São Paulo Declaration. Also, the language of human rights should be reinforced within WSIS, as has already been mentioned. However, I would like to use my few minutes to draw attention to a central issue of our digital lives, that is data governance. Although not explicitly stated, this is a cross-cutting issue within the WSIS Action Lines and deserves greater recognition in the review process. This also relates to the GDC. In this integration, WSIS could incorporate some of the language updates the GDC presents. Data governance, as we understand it, is not resumed to technical aspects. It refers to a set of structural, strategic, regulatory, and dialogic elements between the local and global levels, to fully realize human and social development capacities across various aspects of the digital economy. In this sense, initiatives such as the CSTD’s Working Group on Data Governance are welcome as an opportunity to consider this issue for both GDC and WSIS. However, it is important to highlight that data governance demands state action, particularly in the context of AI regulation. This point also relates to a wider problem that we have not yet been able to solve, the growing information and power concentration in the digital economy. This concentration directly implies intensifying power asymmetries, a challenge that demands a more cohesive dialogue between multilateral and multistakeholder initiatives at a global level. Thank you so much. My name is Natra Santo, and I speak on behalf of the Dynamic Teen Coalition, the first and only teen born at the United Nations. I want to begin by thanking you sincerely for your time and attention. I’m here to advance the DTC Teen Civil Rights Movement by and for the UN. We need to move beyond token inclusion and begin building real structural support for teens in global decision-making processes. At yesterday’s session, my colleagues Alia Gupta and Amrit Kumar raised this issue, and we deeply appreciate Mr. Vint Cerf’s response. He said that the decisions made today shape the future that teenagers will inherit and lead. That kind of leadership is essential, but we must also move from recognition to reform. So today, we delivered three urgent practical recommendations. We need to integrate the UN and IGF age frameworks using the inclusive, lifelong, multi-stakeholder model that our DTC co-chairs, Pirate Ruby Pasel and Stacey Guildenstern, developed over three years. This reflects real-world and evolving digital participation, starting at age 13. If we teens are expected to navigate digital spaces, we must also be trusted to help shape them. To remove the existing structural barriers that prevent teens from registering, to make way for funded, sustainable pathways to increase teen-led UN engagement. These are not visionary ideals. They are basic governance updates, long overdue. We also have a model for children all the way to senior careers. Zero to 12 years being child would focus on safety, 13 to 19 being teen focus on human rights, 18 plus being early career, mid-career being focalizing on developing a deeper targeted network of exchange, and senior career being a time for giving back, for mentorship. and legacy building. A people-centered inclusive information society cannot be built while entire generations are left out by design. We cannot claim to serve the next generation while that generation remains locked out of almost all UN processes. We’re not asking for permission, we’re already participating. We’re asking the system to reflect reality because this is what modern multistakeholderism demands. Because this is a DTC teen civil rights movement by and for the UN. If inclusion is more than a principle on paper then it must mean all of us and that includes teens. The DTC age inclusive multistakeholder framework is a mechanism and the time is now. Thank you so much. Thank you Netrunner for your commitment and activism. I would like now to invite Kenneth Leng from Net Mission Asia to take the floor. Dear Excellencies and fellow Internet Governance practitioners, I appreciate this opportunity in this consultation session where Michael is from Hong Kong Youth Internet Governance Forum have made an intervention in yesterday’s session. However, we also see the value of However, we also see the value of emphasising some of our thoughts from the Asia-Pacific region in today’s sessions that target stakeholders from the Americas, Africa and Europe, where I’m currently based as an independent tech policy and digital empowerment consultant. For the WSIS review process so far there is a broad consensus on strengthening the existing components rather than creating entirely novel ones for tackling emerging issues and technologies as well as the continuous implementation of GDC and WSIS processes. So we want to emphasise on the current processes and strengthening these components. And as we applaud and appreciate the proliferation of national, regional and youth initiatives organically sprung up in communities and grassroots approaches, it would be beneficial to reinforce the NRI support. Network for sustainable engagement of different communities of the internet. We recognize the current endeavors by the IGF secretaries and the organizations such as the Internet Governance Forum support associations, yet community events and showcases of IGF initiatives are some of the examples. Besides, the current efforts of uploading post-event reports onto the dedicated websites will be beneficial. A portal for NRI coordinators to engage and exchange ideas will also be great to support local and youth initiatives and coordinators to collaborate beyond the regions and community groups as well as for better impact measurements of NRIs. This will support and strengthen local and grassroots internet governance network beyond the current level of monetary and resource support for grassroots organizations of NRIs. Efforts like these encourage more people and stakeholders which are not already in the internet governance arena to participate in this cause. We also want to highlight the collective Hong Kong youth statement on internet governance where we call for a smart digital economy where smart is an acronym for sustainable, multi-stakeholder valued, accountable, resilient and trusted. We believe this will give insights into the future of people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented information society. While I don’t have the time to go into details of what we envision a smart digital economy would be, I invite you all to read our full statements later on and meaningful engagement like this, like today, is crucial in shaping our digital future and must be continued and be strengthened in prompting a smart digital economy. I thank you again for this opportunity and I look forward to seeing many of you in Norway for the 20th IGF and other research engagement. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Kenneth and indeed we would love to have more time but time is a little bit limited now and we’ll get through the statements that you have delivered very carefully. I would like now to invite Shumaila Hussain Shahani. Just please keep in mind that we are short of time and keep your intervention very focused. And please present the organization that you are coming from. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I am speaking on behalf of Tech Global Institute. We are a policy lab with a mission to reduce equity and accountability gaps between technology platforms and the global majority. Because there is short time and I recognize that many of our colleagues have already highlighted key concerns and proposals. I wanna use my time to briefly reiterate what we see as essential to a fair and inclusive digital governance framework. We know these perspectives are now shared by many across the global majority and are grounded in belief that inclusive and multi-stakeholder governance benefits us all. We urge a renewed commitment to WSIS as the foundation for global digital cooperation. The GDC should not sit apart but be integrated into the WSIS framework, reinforcing its people-centered approach and building on the IGF’s open deliberative model. To realize this, we need a stronger IGF, one with a clear mandate, sufficient resources and the ability to meaningfully shape global agendas. This also means reforming multi-stakeholder advisory groups, supporting national and regional IGFs and enabling sustained participation from underrepresented communities. Inclusion must be guaranteed through practical measures such as support for travel, visas and connectivity, multilingual and regionally considerate participation and capacity building that responds to local realities. We also believe WSIS action lines must evolve to address urgent issues like artificial intelligence. It carries risks that must be addressed through processes centered on public interest, transparency and equity, not just innovation. Finally, digital governance must support sustainable development. We cannot meet the SDGs if digital exclusion and monopolies persist. The digital economy must be reoriented to serve people by protecting workers, regulating exploitative practices, and ensuring wealth generated from our communities is reinvested in them. In closing, we see WSIS not just as a review but as a renewal. The global majority brings not only critiques but vision, solutions, and deep commitment to building a fairer digital future. We look forward to continuing this work in true partnership. Thank you. Thank you, Shumaila. I have the request to speak from Mr. Hossam El Gamal. Hossam, can you please confirm if you are in line? Okay, you have the floor, sir. Thank you very much. Much appreciation to you, Ambassadors. It’s an opportunity to speak as one of the stakeholders representing private sector from Africa, SME. I was chairman of AFICTA for a period of time and International Chamber of Commerce Digital Economy Ambassador for Africa. So simply, I reiterate the point that it is extremely important with the review of the WSIS and the IGF to make sure that we have enough integration between the processes of each initiative. WSIS has been maturing over 20 years and has been very successful in helping the digital transformation in the world. But still, we have missing access for more than a billion people and we have the challenge of innovation advancement, AI, and new technology. And for this, it is extremely important to benefit from the existence of the NRIs as part of the IGF to make sure that the voice is coming bottom up using the multi-stakeholder of the IGF. to deliver consultation messages to the WSIS and to be able to deliver on the digital exam. One thing for sure, we have for a successful digital transformation, we need one, building capacity, especially in the global south, two, ensuring access, three, building entrepreneurship and funding. One of the things that are very important is multilingual, because many countries have languages that are not used and they are not capable of using the internet because they are not using their language, their original language. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Hossam. I would like now to invite Winnie, come on to take the floor. Is Winnie online? No? Okay, I think that this was the last request, but we cannot connect with Winnie, so we have concluded with the list of speakers for today, and with my gratitude for everyone’s participation and contribution, I would like to hand over to my colleague Ambassador Locale for closing remarks. Ketela, back to you. Thank you very much Ambassador Janina for steering that session so ably, and thank you all for your meaningful participation and the deeply, deeply thoughtful insights that you’ve shared with us throughout today’s session. It’s been a privilege. for me, as I’m sure it is for my colleague, to hear directly from such a diverse range of voices representing civil society, the technical community, academia and private sector partners. We’ve heard from you, those of you who’ve been able to take the mic. We’ve also been following very closely the interactive chats which you’ve been able to post, as well as references to other sources where we can get additional information. Your experiences are truly vital as we collectively shape a digital future that upholds the principles of equity, inclusion and development. As we move forward, your contributions will directly inform the Elements paper, which will be releasing on the 20th of June and will help guide us on the road to the high-level meeting this December. On my part, I would like to encourage you to remain actively engaged, as you’ve done during this session, and to very kindly continue sharing your expertise in future milestones. I look forward to seeing you again here in subsequent consultations, but also in other platforms where Ambassador Janina and I look forward to interacting with you. I thank you most sincerely for your contributions and your input, and we look forward to interacting closely with yourselves between now and the high-level meeting in December. I thank you, and I now give it back to my colleague, Ambassador Janina, to also make her closing remarks. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ambassador Nakane. In fact, I would like just to echo your appreciation for the contribution of everyone during yesterday but also during today’s part of consultation with all stakeholders. I think that we have had very rich and very substantial inputs that will help us a lot in building up the elements paper. We take notes and we hear very clearly the messages that have been transmitted to us on preserving the multi-stakeholder approach and the fact of being at the same level of communication with member states will reflect this accordingly. And during the next months there will be very intensive ways of cooperation together. I think that we need to underline that this process the WSIS plus 20 process belongs to everyone. No one has exclusivity over it so I think we’ll build on over this perspective and stay connected together through the months ahead because these are very important. You mentioned that we’ll have some meeting points in Oslo but also in Norway but also in Geneva but we are open all the days that you may have any idea or would like to bring to our attention any kind of element. So by thanking you again we look forward to working with you and to take this journey together with you for the months to come. Thank you very much and with much appreciation we conclude this meeting today and wish everyone a good continuation of your day from all parts of the world that we are connected. Thank you. you

Agreement points

Strengthen multi-stakeholder approach in WSIS

Speakers

– UNKNOWN

Arguments

Reaffirm commitment to multi-stakeholder approach as core of WSIS

Implement São Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines

Ensure meaningful participation from all stakeholders, including Global South

Summary

There is strong agreement on the need to reinforce and expand the multi-stakeholder model in WSIS, ensuring inclusive participation from diverse stakeholders, particularly those from the Global South.

Renew and strengthen the Internet Governance Forum (IGF)

Speakers

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Arguments

Grant IGF a permanent mandate with sustainable funding

Enhance IGF’s inclusivity and ability to produce actionable outcomes

Strengthen national and regional IGFs

Use IGF as platform for implementing GDC commitments

Summary

There is consensus on the importance of reinforcing the IGF by granting it a permanent mandate, ensuring sustainable funding, improving its inclusivity and effectiveness, and leveraging it for implementing Global Digital Compact commitments.

Address emerging challenges and technologies within WSIS framework

Speakers

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Arguments

Update WSIS framework to address AI, data governance, and environmental sustainability

Develop rights-respecting governance for new technologies

Focus on closing digital divides exacerbated by new technologies

Integrate AI governance into existing WSIS action lines

Summary

Speakers agree on the need to update the WSIS framework to address emerging challenges like AI, data governance, and environmental sustainability, while ensuring human rights protection and closing digital divides.

Similar viewpoints

There is a shared emphasis on integrating human rights principles into WSIS implementation, recognizing the role of OHCHR, addressing digital rights violations, and ensuring private sector compliance with human rights standards.

Speakers

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Arguments

Anchor WSIS implementation in international human rights framework

Formally recognize role of OHCHR in WSIS processes

Address digital authoritarianism and human rights abuses online

Ensure private sector respects human rights in line with UN Guiding Principles

Speakers share a common view on promoting inclusive and sustainable digital development, emphasizing meaningful connectivity, community-driven approaches, alignment with SDGs, and addressing economic inequalities in the digital sphere.

Speakers

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Arguments

Focus on meaningful connectivity and digital skills, not just access

Support community-driven models of connectivity

Align digital governance with SDGs and development goals

Address market concentration and ensure equitable benefits from digital economy

Unexpected consensus

Integration of GDC into WSIS framework

Speakers

– UNKNOWN

Arguments

Integrate GDC implementation into existing WSIS framework

Explanation

There appears to be unexpected consensus on integrating the Global Digital Compact (GDC) implementation into the existing WSIS framework, suggesting a desire for coherence and efficiency in global digital governance efforts.

Overall assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement include strengthening the multi-stakeholder approach, renewing and reinforcing the IGF, addressing emerging technological challenges, integrating human rights into digital governance, and promoting inclusive and sustainable digital development.

Consensus level

There appears to be a high level of consensus among the speakers on these key issues, suggesting a shared vision for the future of WSIS and global digital governance. This consensus could facilitate more coordinated and effective implementation of WSIS outcomes and related initiatives like the Global Digital Compact.

Different viewpoints

Unexpected differences

Overall assessment

Summary

There were no significant disagreements identified among the speakers. The arguments presented were largely aligned and complementary.

Disagreement level

Very low. The speakers demonstrated a high level of consensus on key issues such as strengthening the multi-stakeholder model, enhancing the IGF, addressing emerging challenges, promoting human rights, and fostering inclusive digital development. This level of agreement suggests a shared vision for the future of WSIS and digital governance, which could facilitate more effective implementation of agreed-upon strategies and policies.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

There is a shared emphasis on integrating human rights principles into WSIS implementation, recognizing the role of OHCHR, addressing digital rights violations, and ensuring private sector compliance with human rights standards.

Speakers

– UNKNOWN

Arguments

Anchor WSIS implementation in international human rights framework

Formally recognize role of OHCHR in WSIS processes

Address digital authoritarianism and human rights abuses online

Ensure private sector respects human rights in line with UN Guiding Principles

Speakers share a common view on promoting inclusive and sustainable digital development, emphasizing meaningful connectivity, community-driven approaches, alignment with SDGs, and addressing economic inequalities in the digital sphere.

Speakers

– UNKNOWN

Arguments

Focus on meaningful connectivity and digital skills, not just access

Support community-driven models of connectivity

Align digital governance with SDGs and development goals

Address market concentration and ensure equitable benefits from digital economy

Key takeaways

Resolutions and action items

Unresolved issues

Suggested compromises

The rare commodity is no longer information, which is abundant, but it is attention. So inclusive knowledge societies, which should be centred around human attention, human well-being and a role for humans in an AI-facilitated future at their core.

Speaker

Cedric Watholes from UNESCO

Reason

This reframes the core challenge from information access to human attention and wellbeing in an AI-driven world, updating the WSIS vision for current realities.

Impact

Shifted the discussion to consider how AI and information overload are changing the nature of the ‘information society’ envisioned by WSIS.

The IGF should be renewed with a permanent, if not long-term, mandate.

Speaker

Fiona Alexander from American University

Reason

Advocates for institutionalizing the Internet Governance Forum, which has been a key outcome of WSIS.

Impact

Sparked discussion about the future role and structure of the IGF, with many subsequent speakers echoing support for a permanent IGF mandate.

We need governance models that are agile, responsive, and rooted in multi-stakeholder values, especially as we respond to rapid developments in AI, neurotechnology, and other emerging fields.

Speaker

Ambassador Janina

Reason

Highlights the need for flexible governance approaches to keep pace with rapidly evolving technologies.

Impact

Set the tone for discussions on how to adapt WSIS frameworks to address emerging technologies like AI.

We cannot meet the SDGs if digital exclusion and monopolies persist. The digital economy must be reoriented to serve people by protecting workers, regulating exploitative practices, and ensuring wealth generated from our communities is reinvested in them.

Speaker

Shumaila Hussain Shahani from Tech Global Institute

Reason

Connects digital governance directly to sustainable development and economic justice issues.

Impact

Broadened the conversation to consider the wider socioeconomic impacts of digital policies and governance structures.

Overall assessment

These key comments helped evolve the discussion from a retrospective on WSIS to a forward-looking dialogue on adapting digital governance for emerging challenges. They emphasized the need to update WSIS frameworks to address AI, refocus on human wellbeing, strengthen multi-stakeholder processes like the IGF, and ensure digital governance supports broader sustainable development and economic justice goals. The comments collectively pushed for a more integrated, flexible, and human-centered approach to global digital cooperation.

How can the WSIS Plus 20 review process be made more interactive, allowing stakeholders and governments to engage in direct dialogue?

Speaker

Wolfgang Klein-Watscher

Explanation

He suggested the current format risks ending up in monologues rather than true multi-stakeholder dialogue, which is important for inclusive policymaking.

How can the WSIS framework be updated to address new challenges like AI, environmental sustainability, and data governance without creating entirely new action lines?

Speaker

Multiple speakers including Cedric Watholes from UNESCO and Titi Casa from Agency Pernittalia Digitale

Explanation

Several participants emphasized the need to evolve the WSIS framework to address emerging issues while maintaining its core structure.

How can the Global Digital Compact be integrated into the existing WSIS architecture to avoid duplication and ensure coherence?

Speaker

Multiple speakers including Isabel De Sola from UN ODET and Fiona Alexander

Explanation

Many participants stressed the importance of aligning new initiatives like the GDC with existing WSIS processes to maximize efficiency and impact.

What concrete steps can be taken to strengthen and potentially make permanent the Internet Governance Forum?

Speaker

Multiple speakers including Mona Gabana from Internet Society and Alisha Sharif from Technical Community Coalition

Explanation

There was widespread support for reinforcing the IGF’s role, with calls for sustainable funding and a permanent mandate.

How can the multi-stakeholder model be further strengthened and made more inclusive, particularly for underrepresented groups?

Speaker

Multiple speakers including Laura O’Brien from AccessNow and Shumaila Hussain Shahani

Explanation

Many participants emphasized the need for more diverse voices in digital governance, including from the Global South and marginalized communities.

What mechanisms can be put in place to better integrate teen voices into UN digital governance processes?

Speaker

Natra Santo from Dynamic Teen Coalition

Explanation

They argued for structural changes to allow meaningful participation of teens in shaping digital policies that will affect their future.

How can data governance be more explicitly incorporated into the WSIS framework?

Speaker

Jacqueline Trevisan-Pigato from Data Privacy Brazil

Explanation

She highlighted data governance as a cross-cutting issue that deserves greater recognition in the WSIS review process.