Shaping WSIS+20: GNI, GPD, and Partners Promote Multistakeholder Internet Governance with ICANN Support
The Global Network Initiative (GNI) and Global Partners Digital (GPD) announce a new year-long project which aims to shape the outcomes of a major United Nations (UN) digital governance process, the 20-year review of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), through research and multistakeholder dialogues in collaboration with ten civil society partners in eight countries. Our project, Shaping the WSIS+20 Review for a Unified Internet Multistakeholderism (SWUIM), is supported by the inaugural ICANN Grant Program and will help to uphold and protect a rights-respecting, multistakeholder model of Internet governance–an essential framework that preserves the open and globally interconnected nature of the Internet.
The WSIS+20 Review, occurring throughout 2025, marks a key opportunity to assess the progress made towards the original goal of the WSIS–building a people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented Information Society. It offers an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between WSIS, and other key international frameworks including the Global Digital Compact implementation, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to discuss the future of the pre-eminent international venue for discussion on digital policy, the Internet Governance Forum.
This project aims to ensure the voices from the Global Majority and technical community are represented in the WSIS+20 review process. Partners include the Centre for Communications Governance at the National Law University, New Delhi, Digitally Right, Research ICT Africa, Anriette Esterhuysen, Media Foundations for West Africa, Paradigm Initiative, Derechos Digitales, Karisma, Data Privacy Brazil, and CIPESA. Our efforts will span Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ghana, India, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia, and will also encompass research on China, the European Union, Indonesia, the United States (US), Russia, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland.
The project kicked off with national workshops involving policymakers, local civil society, the private sector, and the technical community in Chile, India, Bangladesh, South Africa, Zambia, Ghana, Tanzania, Brazil, and Colombia. A report jointly written by project partners which outlines the key priorities, actors, and opportunities for engagement in each of the above eight countries and China, the European Union, Indonesia, the United States (US), Russia, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland will be launched at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The report aims to help civil society globally to better understand national positions during WSIS+20 and guide their advocacy.
This project builds upon the advocacy efforts that GNI and GPD have conducted concerning WSIS, the IGF, and the Global Digital Compact, ensuring that internet governance remains rights-based, multi-stakeholder, and rooted in contextual realities.