Papers

By Regine Grienberger and Lilian Georgieva-Weiche.

Global endeavors to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are increasingly gearing up speed and digital technologies together with online connectivity are among the key agents for change. All efforts should have one common vision in mind: one where all citizens of the world have access to a safe, enriching, and productive online experience at a reasonable cost.

However, as we try to bridge the digital divide, we face a crucial balancing act: While digital transformation promises substantial economic and social benefits, it also opens the door to heightened cybersecurity risks, with significant political and economic implications for all countries alike.

Continue reading “Building Cyber Resilience for Sustainable Development”

By Prof. Dr. Rolf H. Weber.

2024 and 2025 will be exciting years for Internet Governance: The Global Digital Compact (GDC) should reach the final shape and the WSIS+20 celebration might be a milestone for the future of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). At the time of the two WSIS Summits (2003/05), Internet Governance was often seen as a mainly technical issue with some political implications. In the meantime, the equation appears to have reversed: Internet Governance has become a mainly political issue with a technical component. For the future, different pillars are important, namely, based on the multistakeholder participation principle, a consolidation of the institutional framework, the better alignment with generally accepted international legal principles and the inclusion of new policy issues into the debates.

Continue reading “IGF future: Why we need Consolidation and Acknowledged Legal Principles”

By Jimson Olufuye.

The Netmundial+10 convened at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Sao Paulo, Brazil on April 29-30, 2024. It was a logical follow-up to the maiden edition in 2014. The 2014 edition took place as a result of the urgent need to address the asymmetric oversight by the United States [https://aficta.africa/latest-news/480-the-evolving-face-of-enhanced-cooperation-what-is-next-after-wgec2-0] of the critical Internet resource (domain name system & the IANA function) which had become a global resource for the benefit of all.

Continue reading “Netmundial+10: projecting the benefit of Multistakeholderism”

By Chris Buckridge.

This post probably won’t age well.

That’s the risk in commenting on a document so unambiguously labelled a “Zero Draft” – the push and pull of multilateral negotiations will significantly alter the document before any final agreement is reached, relegating this draft (and this blog post!) to the status of historical artefact.

But for those who’ve been swept along in the process to develop a United Nations Global Digital Compact (GDC), the recent publication of a Zero Draft feels like a major milestone, and a first sense of what such a compact might look like. Moreover, it provides important insight into how that process has gone thus far – what impact can we see from the stakeholder consultations and Member State inputs? – and where we might expect it to go from here. For the incurable optimists among us, it’s a moment to hope that we might help steer the coming negotiations in a positive direction and fulfil the ambition laid out by the Secretary-General in his original vision.

Continue reading “Baby Steps Towards a Global Digital Compact: Reflections on the Zero Draft”

By Konstantinos Komaitis.

The long-awaited Global Digital Compact (GDC) zero draft dropped on April 1, and there is a lot in it. It requires time to absorb it all; with discussions already in progress since Friday, April 5, time is an issue. Also, it is important to remember that this is the “zero draft” and, by the time this process ends at the end of May, the text will look very different. This means that there is no need to panic; at least, not yet.

The zero draft gives a good snapshot of where the mind of the United Nations–and those of its member states–is.

Here is my high-level take.

Continue reading “The GDC zero draft: the good, the bad, and the ugly”