On Wednesday, December 17, 2025, the Chair of the 68th Plenary Meeting of the 80th UN General Assembly (UNGA) used his hammer to decide the adoption by consensus of the “Outcome document of the high level meeting on the overall review of the implementation of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society” (WSIS+20). However, the applause in the big hall of the UN building on the East River was restrained. Too many governments were “equally unhappy” with the final text, and they made clear that “consensus” does not mean “agreement”.

A Weak or a Strong Document?

The US rejected all references to the SDGs, gender, and climate and expressed its reservations on a long list of paragraphs. The G77 and China made clear that for them, the whole package is too weak: no clear financial commitments to close the digital divide, no enhanced role for governments in Internet Governance, no reference to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR). Russia was unhappy with the role of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Iran missed a strong paragraph on enhanced cooperation, Israel was unhappy with the references to digital problems in “occupied territories”, Argentina disagreed with references to disinformation and hate speech, Ukraine disagreed with the praragraph which rejects unilateral sanctions, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria distanced themselves from the sections refering to “sexual and gender based violence” in para. 11 and for India the whole text was not ambitious enough.

On the other hand, the fact that after six months of stakeholder consultations and intergovernmental negotiations, nobody was against the adoption of the outcome document, that nobody asked for a vote, is a reason to celebrate. The 2005 vision of a “people centered, inclusive and development oriented information society”, based on international law and human rights, was reaffirmed (para.1). The value and principles of multistakeholder cooperation has been recognized as “vital in developing the information society” (para.2). And the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was made permanent (para.99). All this is good news for the friends of WSIS. The WSIS journey can continue. The Outcome document of WSIS+20 is the starting point for WSIS+30 in 2035.

Everybody in the Plenary Hall of the UN building understood that this was not a historical moment, not a breakthrough that catapulted digital policy-making to a higher level. It was the lowest level, where adversaries could agree, regardless of the contradictions they have in other political fields. But the weakness of the WSIS+20 Outcome Document is probably its strength. Everybody knows we live in complicated times.

Against the background of the geostrategic political tensions, it was a wise decision of the two co-facilitators—the UN ambassadors from Albania and Kenia - not to wake up sleeping dogs by bringing today’s controversial digital problems—cybercime, cyberterrorism, digital neocolonialsm, digital taxation, cross border free flow of trusted data, the misuse of social networks, mass surveillance, internet shutdowns, online censorship, dominance of tech companies, Internet based autonomous weapon systems and others - to the forefront of WSIS+20.

The low ambitions saved the noble vision of the past and left the door open for improvements in the future, when the political climate will allow bigger steps. WSIS+20 was probably not an “outstanding success”, but it was a success, a small light of hope in a darkening political landscape. From an eagle’s perspective, WSIS+20 was just a milestone in a process that started at the beginning of the Millennium and will continue in the future. That the chain didn’t break in New York City in the cold political winter of 2025 is a formidable result.

Old Controversies in a New Environment

It is interesting to look back at Geneva and Tunis. At the end of the first phase of WSIS (2003 in Geneva), there was an agreement on the WSIS Principles and the WSIS Action Lines, but no agreement on how to finance the digital divide and how to govern the Internet.

On the way to the second WSIS phase (Tunis 2005), two subsidiary bodies tried to solve the problems: A Task Force on Financial Mechanism (TFFM) paved the way for the establishment of a Voluntary Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF). And the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) proposed the establishment of an IGF as a multistakeholder discussion platform, but left the question open about the role governments should play in Internet Governance. But while the DSF died in 2009 and the discussion on an intergovernmental Internet body didn’t produce anything but two controversial reports from UNCTSD Working Groups on Enhanced Cooperation (WGEC), the IGF prospered and created a unique ecosystem with a broad range of intersessional activities, subsidiary bodies and more than 170 national and regional IGFs.

Insofar as it was not really a surprise that in the final WSIS+20 negotiations, we did have a deja vu: Nobody challenged the proposal to make the IGF permanent. But the two other issues—financial mechanism and the role of governments—were back on the negotiation table. The difference between 2005 and 2025 was that 20 years ago, the Internet was still seen as primarily a technical issue with some political implications. Today, Internet-related problems are highly sensitive political issues with a technical component. This made the old/new controversies highly complex.

From the Elements Paper to the Final Outcome Document

The negotiations for the final outcome document started in June 2025 with the publication of an “Elements Paper.” The “Elements Paper” was discussed at length during the IGF in Lillestroem/Norway, at the WSIS Forum in Geneva and by two rounds of stakeholder consultations. The feedback enabled the co-facilitators to publish a “Zero Draft” at the end of August 2025, which was also discussed in an open and transparent manner in a series of public consultations with more than 100 written comments from all stakeholder groups. Critical remarks were incorporated into a revised version (Rev.1), published on November 7, 2025. Also, this draft was critically examined by all stakeholders, and good proposals were used as input for a second revision (Rev.2). Rev.2 constituted the basis for the final negotiations, which started on December 9, 2025, in Room 12, in the UN Headquarters (UNHQ).

When the governments (non-state actors were not allowed to follow the final negotiations) came together, it seemed that a majority was rather satisfied with the compromise language of Rev.2. But when the group started to go line by line through the 20 pages, the temperature in room 12 in the UNHQ basement got colder and colder. On Thursday, December 11, the majority of the 127 paragraphs were in brackets.

To accommodate all the critical remarks, the two co-facilitators produced a third revision (Rev.3) and distributed it to member states under the “silence procedure” with the hope of getting consensus. But as the negotiation group did meet again on Friday, December 12, 15.00 EST, the silence was broken by a handful of governments. 55 paragraphs out of the 127 paragraphs of Rev.3 were challenged. And the US government declared that it is not in a position to support the document. In other words, the whole WSIS+20 review process was on the brink of collapse.

What could the co-facilitators do in such a frozen atmosphere, where everybody defined their “red lines”? They entered into bilateral consultations with the brokers of the silence and offered another compromise version over the weekend (Rev.4), but this version also got opposition from a number of governments. At this stage, the president of the 80th UNGA stepped in and hammered out overnight the final compromise version, which was presented Tuesday morning at the beginning of the high-level ministerial meeting.

With this text, nobody was really happy. But at the end of the day, the EU, UK, Australia, Canada, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Uganda, Cuba, G77, China and even the USA recognized that it is better to have a weak document and to continue the 20-year-old process, than to produce another political disaster.

Financial Mechanism

With regard to financing, the compromise was to delegate the issue to a task force to make proposals for future actions until 2027. But the new task force will not be similar to the TFFM from 2004/2005. This time the ITU is invited to establsh an “internal Task Force to conduct an assessment of gaps and challenges and to submit concrete recommendations on strengthening financial mechanisms for digital development in developing countries” (para. 67). For the G77 and China the establishment of a task force for financing the digital transformation was a red line. The US, EU and UK opposed the establishment of an independent new institution. But both sides agreed that there is a need to mobilize funding for the development of infrastructure, for capacity building and investment in AI.

To have now an internal task force within the ITU with the mandate to analyze the gaps and challenges is a reasonable compromise, but it is indeed a very weak proposal. To analyze gaps and challenges for the development of information infrastructure is what the ITU is doing since the establishment of its ITU-D sector more than 30 years ago. The hope is that the pressure from WSIS+20 will push the ITU to a new level and that it will go beyond the “Baku Declaration,” which was adopted in November 2025 at ITU’s World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC) and which declared that “nobody should be left behind in the digital age.”

The lesson learned from the failed DSF is that in a very competitive digital market economy, the expectation that a “Digital Solidarity Fund” will help to close the digital divide is an idea from yesterday. It was interesting to hear from many developing countries that they did not expect cash money from rich countries. They were calling for equal partnership in the digital economy and for equal participation in global digital policymaking. To close the digital divide is primarily a challenge to create incentives for private investment into local infrastructure and applications, and for fair public-private partnerships.

The digital minister of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah Amer Alswaha, made it clear that it needs, first of all, job opportunities, digital education and local initiatives in the Global South. If 90 percent of AI LLMs are trained in just one language, the result will be unbalanced. This has to be changed.

Internet Governance

A similar observation can be made with regard to the role of governments in Internet Governance. The plan of some governments after Tunis, to solve digital problems by the establishment of an Intergovernmental Internet Council, didn’t work in the last 20 years. And it won’t work in the future. Nevertheless, some governments from the Global South, Russia and others are not happy with the existing mechanisms, which leave the “day-to-day operations” in managing critical Internet resources in the hand of non-govenrmental stakeholders. They wanted to use WSIS+20 to funnel the idea of “enhanced cooperation” via a backdoor into the IGF, by introducing an “IGF governmental track” with the mandate to negotiate recommendations.

Just recently, in September 2024, the GDC acknowledged “the IGF as the primary multistakeholder platform for discussion of Internet governance issues.” An independent governmental track within the IGF would have changed the multistakeholder nature of the IGF. This was a “no-go” for the supporters of the IGF.

The compromise language in para. 101 invites now the IGF to “enhance its working modalities and to broaden the participation of governments and other stakeholders from developing countries and underrepresented communities by working on establishing and facilitating a dialogue among governments with the participation of all stakeholders”.

This partly confusing language of the paragraph 101 reflects the difficulties, some governments have with their understanding of the relationship between “Multistakeholderism” and “Multilateralism”. Some governments want to see the multistakeholder approach under governmental control. Others see governments as an independent stakeholder within the multistakeholder model.

Some governments think in categories of hierarchies, with governments at the top of the hierarchy. Others understand a modern society as a network, where different stakeholders have different responsibilities, but work hand in hand on equal footing. It is top-down vs. bottom-up. Para. 101 does not solve the problem, but it allows a continuation of the debate by keeping the multistakeholder nature of the IGF and inviting governments to play a more active role.

Multistakeholderism and Multilateralism

This issue is the subject of controversial discussions since the first IGF in Athens in 2006. Over the years, a common understanding has emerged that the two concepts do not exclude each other, but have to be seen as complementary. The intergovernmental system continues to play an important role, but it is embedded in a multistakeholder environment. Digital policy development should be bottom-up and include all stakeholders, including governments, as proposed by the Internet Governance definition from the Tunis Agenda. WSIS+20 reaffirmed the Tunis definition (para.88) which says that “Internet governance is the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.”

One of the achievements of the WSIS+20 process is that, at the end of the day, the multistakeholder approach was further strengthened, compared with the Tunis Agenda from 2005 and the WSIS+10 Outcome document from 2015. In the 122 paragraphs of the Tunis Agenda, the terms “multistakeholder” and “stakeholders” appeared 22 times. In the 71 paragraphs of WSIS+10, the two terms appeared 19 times. Now we have 51 references to the multistakeholder approach in the 127 paragraphs of WSIS+20.

An enhanced understanding of this hybrid concept is also reflected in the introduction chapter. Para.3 “reaffirms the value and principles of multistakeholder cooperation”. Para.4 reaffirms the “principle of the sovereign equality of all states” . The document starts with references to the multistakeholder approach and continues with the role of governments. In other words, it recognizes that the intergovernmental multilateralism is embedded in a multistakeholder environment. Multistakeholderism and Multilateralism are two sides of one coin. What is needed is not a battle between stakeholders about “leadership”, but an enhanced cooperation among all concerned stakeholders in their respective roles on equal footing.

And it is also important that the WSIS+20 Outcome Document includes, in para.94, a reference to the NetMundial “Sao Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines” (SPMG) from April 2024. The SPMGs went one step beyond the agreed principles of Internet Governance and defined in more detail the “How” of multistakeholder cooperation. With the SPMGs, the community now has a criterion to measure the real level of mulistakeholderism in digital policy making. That all 193 UN member states have now taken note of the SPMGs is a small but important step into the still unknown territory of sharing policy development and decision-making among stakeholders in the age of cyberinterdependence.

But the reality is that many governments pay just lip service to the multistakeholder model. This was also reflected in the modalities of the WSIS+20 preparatory process. It did include a formal support for the multistakeholder model, but in practice, it was organized in two rather separate workstreams: consultations with non-governmental stakeholders and negotiations among governments. Only a small number of governments joined the non-governmental stakeholder consultations. And non-state actors were excluded from the intergovernmental negotiations.

The idea, to have a closer link between the two groups by forming an “Informal Multistakeholder Sounding Board” (IMSB) was a good one. But it did work with only limited success. The IMSB, which did have the full support of the two co-facilitators, tried to pull governments into the non-governmental discussion, offered “Office Hours” for interested stakeholders and published statements. But even the IMSB was not allowed to sit as a silent observer in the negotiation room.

Now, after WSIS+20, governments have a chance within a renewed IGF to demonstrate how seriously they are interested in sharing ideas and policy development with other stakeholders. And the innovative idea of an IMSB as a channel to organise communication among stakeholders is worth considering for future negotiations.

On the other hand, the IGF, its Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) and its Leadership Panel (LP) have also to do its homework. They have to reconsider the modalities of the IGF and to create more incentives for an engagement of all stakeholders—governments, parliamentarians, big and small businesses, civil society, technical and academic community - to create an environment to proof that the IGF is indeed “the primary multistakeholder platform for discussion of Internet governance issues” and is abler to produce tangible outcomes which can be used by all stakeholders. The plan, to establish a new “Working Group on IGF Enhancement” under the MAG, is an idea that could be helpful to move forward.

To fulfill this role, the IGF needs a stable budget and a strong secretariat. The role of the IGF secretariat in Geneva is strengthened in para. 103, but the issue of IGF funding remains unresolved. The Outcome document invites now “the UN Secretary General with support of UNDESA, to submit a proposal to the General Assembly during its 80th session to ensure sustainable funding for the Forum.” The mandate of the 80th UNGA session ends in early September 2026. Not much time left. Let’s wait and see.

Human Rights, Artificial Intelligence, Data Governance and other issues

The list of issues raised by the WSIS+20 Outcome document is long. It also includes human rights, digital economy, digital development, cybersecurity, AI and data governance. But the chapters on these issues just reaffirm what was already decided elsewhere and refer to other processes.

In the human rights section, there is a confirmation of the resolution of the Human Rights Council, which says that people should enjoy the same rights both offline and online. Paragraphs related to freedom of expression, protection of privacy and mass surveillance repeat the language from the WSIS+10 document and the GDC. What is new is that the role of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is clearly formulated. This is a good step forward to guarantee that WSIS is rooted in human rights.

The GDC is also seen as the right umbrella for the discussion of AI and data governance. Under the GDC, two new UN bodies for AI have been established recently: the International Scientific Panel on AI and the Global Dialogue on AI Governance. The first Global Dialogue on AI Governance will take place in Geneva in July 2026, together with the WSIS Forum. The GDC also recommended the establishment of a Working Group on Digital Governance (WGDG), which has started its work already in spring 2025 and has to present its final report to the UNCSTD in Geneva by 2027

The section on the digital economy calls for a “open, fair and non-discriminatory environment for digital development” (para. 30) and invites “to tackle concentrations of technological capacity and market power in order to ensure that the benefits of digital cooperation are fairly distributed.” (para. 31). This is very polite language and avoids to raise controversial issues as digital taxation, discussed in the International Negotiations Group (ING) of the UN Convention on Taxation, or the Digital Trade Pact, as discussed in the WTO.

The cybersecurity section welcomes the establishment of the new “Global Mechanism” on cybersecurity under the 1st Committeee of the UNGA as a follow up of the “Open Ended Working Group” (OEWG), but has no references to the UN Convention against Cybercrime (Hanoi Convention), which is open for signature since October 2025. It also ignores the discussions under the CCW on Internet-based autonomous weapon systems and the use of AI in the military domain.

It needs skillful hands to coordinate all those activities in the future. WSIS+20 calls for coherence and the avoidance of duplication. More or less, all the new digital policy-making processes are rooted in WSIS and are based on the use of the Internet. The Internet Governance definition from the Tunis Agenda is a broad definition, which is also relevant for Cyber Governance, Digital Governance, IOT Governance, Data Governance or AI Governance. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

Insofar as it is good, WSIS is now closely linked to the GDC review, scheduled for 2027 and the SDG review, scheduled for 2030. It is also good that the role of the UN Group of the Information Society (UNGIS) is strengthened and that UNGIS got a mandate to foster multistakeholder dialogue. (para. 121).

This allows a more holistic review of all the new emerging processes. The WSIS architecture is further growing. It encompasses now the WSIS Action Lines, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Global Digital Compact (GDC), the IGF, the Geneva-based WSIS-Forum, the Global Dialogue on AI, the International Scientific Panel on AI and the UNCSTD Working Group on Data Governance WGDG).

A successful coordination needs a close relationship between the various UN institutions and offices. ECOSOC, ODET and UNDESA in New York have to work hand in hand with the IGF Secretariat, UNCSTD and UNGIS in Geneva. In the information society, everything is connected to everything. The UN High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation (HLP) was right when it stated already in 2019: “We live in the Age of Cyberinterdependence.”

US Government

A new problem in the WSIS context was the role of the US government. For more than 20 years, the US government was a constructive partner in developing the multistakeholder approach for digital policy making. But after the meeting of the UNCSTD in April 2025 in Geneva, where the US government voted against the WSIS+20 resolution, which prepared the WSIS+20 review negotiations in New York, it was unclear until the very last moment what the US government would do.

After the presentation of Rev.3, the US government indicated that it will probably call for a vote on the WSIS+20 outcome document. This was the moment when a group of leading US tech organisations stepped in and wrote a letter to the US State Department, calling for the continuation of the US support for the IGF and the multistakeholder approach.

When the high-level meeting started on Tuesday morning with statements from governments and non-governmental stakeholders, the US refrained from taking the floor. No US statement on Tuesday afternoon. No Statement on Wednesday morning. Only in the afternoon session on Wednesday, the US took the floor as the last speaker and declared that it would not ask for a vote, regardless of its reservations against many parts of the final text. In an “Explanation of Position” before the vote (EOP), the US government distanced itself from numerous paragraphs of the document, but declared that it will continue to support the multistakeholder approach.

What next?

WSIS+20 was a stress test for governments to demonstrate that, regardless of deep controversies, the multilateral mechanisms are still alive and can produce some results. But probably more important was the fact that WSIS+20 had a mobilizing effect for non-governmental stakeholders.

The Global Digital Rights Coalition (GDRC) organized civil society, the Technical Community Coalition for Multistakeholderism (TCCM) united the technical community, and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) brought small and big business together in supporting key WSIS values, as the multistakeholder approach for Internet Governance. The various non-governmental stakeholder groups published position papers and statements with concrete proposals on how to enhance multistakeholder cooperation as the “Five-Point Plan for an Inclusive WSIS+20.” The establishment of the IMSB was another innovation.

Those activities showed to the world that the principles of the WSIS, such as openness, transparency, accountability, inclusion, bottom-up policy development and sharing of norms, rules, principles, programs and decision making are not an abstract vision, but are meanwhile part of the reality within the Internet community.

Keeping this coordinated engagement will be key to implementing the commitments of WSIS+20. A renewed and enhanced IGF in 2026, the next meetings of the UNCSTD WGDG, the Global Dialogue on AI Governance in Geneva in July 2026, the start of the new Global Mechanism on Cybersecurity in New York in March 2026, the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Qatar in November 2026 and other events are already filling the agenda for the coming year. And in 2027, the GDC review is waiting just around the corner.

Ellie McDonald and Lea Kaspar from Global Partner Digital (GPD), an NGO that coordinated civil society engagement in the WSIS+20 process, summarized the final result in the right way: “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. A key task for the broader community will be to track delivery and hold governments to account for the commitments they have made. Whether WSIS functions as a living framework for digital cooperation, or recedes into formality, will depend less on the language agreed than on how those commitments are acted on in the period ahead.”