18 Dec 2025

WSIS+20: What the Final Outcome Delivers – and What It Leaves Unresolved

By Ellie McDonald and Lea Kaspar

As the dust settles on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 20-year Review, attention is turning to what the final outcome document (adopted by consensus on 17 December) ultimately delivers. For much of the review, discussions were pragmatic and forward-looking, reflecting a shared interest in maintaining the relevance of the WSIS framework amid a rapidly evolving digital policy landscape. As negotiations moved into their final phase, focus narrowed to a smaller set of long-standing questions, shaping the contours of the text that was agreed.

The outcome document does not seek to resolve all of the issues raised during the review. Rather, it reaffirms core principles, clarifies institutional roles, and sets out expectations for implementation that will now need to be tested in practice.

As negotiations concluded, GPD intervened during the WSIS+20 high-level event this week, emphasising that legitimacy in digital governance is not secured by consensus alone, but depends on sustained participation, human rights anchoring, and accountability as frameworks move into implementation. Read the full intervention here.

Substantive issues shaping the outcome

Several issues proved more difficult to resolve in the final stages of the process.

On financing, members of the G77 emphasised the need for new financial mechanisms to address persistent investment gaps in developing countries, particularly in relation to digital infrastructure and capacity building. The United States opposed the creation of new mechanisms, while the European Union and others focused on improving coordination and use of existing development and financing architectures. The final text reflects this compromise: it acknowledges financing challenges, and invites the ITU, as secretariat of the UN Group on the Information Society (UNGIS), to establish an internal task force to assess financing gaps and make recommendations on strengthening financing for digital development.

Artificial intelligence was another area of focus. The G77 sought stronger commitments to initiatives supporting AI capacity building and technology transfer, while the EU and others stressed the importance of preserving the technological neutrality of the WSIS framework and ensuring coherence with the approach to AI governance established by the Global Digital Compact (GDC). The outcome largely reflects this latter approach, reaffirming existing processes and locating the proposed AI capacity building fellowship within the UN’s existing Inter-Agency Working Group on AI and requesting it to map existing capacities, reporting to the Global Dialogue on AI governance.

Discussions on the WSIS framework and institutional architecture similarly centred on coherence with the GDC. While there was agreement on the importance of alignment, concerns were raised — particularly by G77 members — about a perceived governance deficit, with decisions affecting developing countries increasingly shaped by governments and industry stakeholders in the Global North.

These concerns surfaced most acutely in debates on multistakeholder approaches and the future of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The EU and others emphasised the need to maintain the multistakeholder principles that have evolved through WSIS and supported making the IGF a permanent structure. At the same time, discussion in the final negotiation phase around the creation of a governmental segment raised questions about institutional balance and how best to preserve the IGF’s multistakeholder character. Ultimately, the final outcome settled on establishing a governmental dialogue with the participation of all stakeholders: the question of precisely how this operates – and whether it establishes anything beyond the IGF’s current parliamentary tack – will be determined by implementation.

Human rights language followed a similar trajectory. The final outcome maintains the baseline reflected in earlier processes, including the GDC. Positions within the G77 were diverse, including some states strongly opposed to stronger human rights language, to those advocating to strengthen it, while civil society coalitions — including the Global Digital Rights Coalition for WSIS — sought to defend and extend protections further.

What the outcome secures

Despite these constraints, the final WSIS+20 outcome contains several notable elements.

First, it retains a clear anchoring in human rights and the multistakeholder character of digital governance. In a context where digital policy discussions are increasingly shaped by security and sovereignty considerations, this continued reference point remains significant.

Second, the outcome strengthens the focus on implementation. It reinforces coherence between WSIS and the GDC, establishes implementation roadmaps, metrics and targets, and clarifies roles for UN entities — including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and UN Women — in integrating human rights and gender equality into digital development policies.

Third, the decision to make the IGF a permanent structure secures the continued existence of a global space for multistakeholder dialogue and initiates a process of institutional reform.

Where concerns remain

At the same time, limitations are evident.

While the outcome retains human rights language, it could have provided a clearer signal on technologies or practices that are fundamentally incompatible with international human rights law. In addition, while the formal recognition of the OHCHR provides an anchoring role for human rights in digital development, it does not provide additional resources to enhance the UN human rights architecture at a time where it, too, is under threat. The ability of the UN system to meet the growing demand to integrate human rights at a practical level is not limited by a lack of knowledge but by a lack of capacity.

Similarly, by leaving the question of financing to an internal task force oriented toward reviewing existing capacities, the outcomes on financing risk affecting perceptions of the WSIS’s ability to address persistent digital inequalities. APC critiqued this approach as lacking a serious framework and failing to provide for crucial stakeholder expertise, pointing to the reality that — without credible pathways to resource commitments — questions may arise about the extent to which the ambitions set out can be realised.

Why the process still matters

Beyond the text itself, the WSIS+20 process was a notable feature of the review. There was an unprecedented degree of coordination among stakeholders, including initiatives such as the Global Digital Rights Coalition for WSIS, the Technical Community Coalition for Multistakeholderism, and joint messaging illustrated by the Five-Point Plan for an Inclusive WSIS+20 and related outputs.

This coordination was supported by specific procedural mechanisms, including the Informal Multistakeholder Sounding Board (IMSB) and satellite consultations, which created additional channels for structured input. While these modalities were not without limitations, they contributed to a more connected and informed exchange across stakeholder groups. The experience points to the value of testing and evolving such approaches further, including by strengthening transparency, selection criteria and accountability, if they are to play a more durable role in future processes.

A waypoint, not an endpoint

The WSIS+20 outcome should be understood as a point of transition rather than closure. As implementation begins, accountability will be a critical test of the framework’s credibility. Commitments made in the final text — including on human rights, multistakeholder approaches and addressing persistent digital inequalities — will require sustained follow-up.