Global Partners Digital Statement to WSIS High Level Event
Delivered by Lea Kaspar
17 December 2025
Your Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues,
We would like to thank the co-facilitators, all delegations, and the wider stakeholder community for the seriousness and openness with which this review process has been conducted.
The consensus reached today builds on months of substantive discussion and provides important grounding for how the WSIS framework continues to evolve.
Twenty years on, the WSIS vision of a “people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society” remains deeply relevant. It has helped guide national policy, shape the work of UN entities, and anchor digital cooperation in a shared set of goals and principles. At a time of profound technological and geopolitical change, that common reference point matters more than ever.
We particularly welcome that the outcome document reaffirms two foundations without which the WSIS vision cannot be realised: the centrality of human rights, and the multistakeholder character of digital governance.
These are not abstract commitments.
They are practical conditions for ensuring that digital policy is credible, effective, and responsive to the people it is meant to serve.
Experience from this review process reminds us that legitimacy in digital governance is not declared — it is built: through inclusive processes, credible expertise, and the ability to translate principles into workable outcomes.
We also recognise the efforts made to strengthen implementation — through greater system-wide coherence, implementation roadmaps for the Action Lines, a strengthened role for human rights expertise within the UN system, and a renewed mandate for the Internet Governance Forum.
These steps reflect a shared understanding that legitimacy is reinforced through delivery.
At the same time, the challenges before us remain stark.
Large parts of the world remain unconnected.
Freedom online is in decline, and civic space continues to shrink.
New technologies risk deepening inequalities rather than addressing them.
Commitments on human rights and meaningful inclusion are essential — but they must translate into sustained action.
From the perspective of civil society and the broader stakeholder community, the WSIS has always been more than an intergovernmental process.
Its strength lies in the ecosystem it has enabled: one that brings together governments, technical experts, businesses, and rights-holders to solve shared problems.
This review has shown, again, what becomes possible when that ecosystem is meaningfully engaged.
Unprecedented collaboration within and between stakeholders – illustrated by initiatives such as the Informal Multistakeholder Sounding Board, the Global Digital Rights Coalition for WSIS, the Technical Community Coalition for Multistakeholderism, and shared statements like the Five-Point Plan – provides a blueprint for integrating multistakeholder advice more systematically across UN processes.
Looking ahead, the task is not simply to preserve the WSIS framework, but to reinforce it — so that it continues to generate trust, enable participation, and support effective problem-solving in an increasingly complex digital environment.
As we move into the next phase, we call on delegations and the wider WSIS community to invest in inclusive implementation — by resourcing participation, using the Action Line roadmaps as living tools, and ensuring that human rights expertise meaningfully informs delivery.
We stand ready to continue contributing to that effort, in close cooperation with all stakeholders.
Thank you.