Co-authored by Valeria Betancourt and Anriette Esterhuysen.

Process matters.

Negotiation processes in the UN are remembered not just for what came out of them, but also for what they were like, who participated, and how they were conducted. People who participated in the first World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) back in 2003 and 2005 often talk about the process, its challenges and its achievements.

For example, there are stories of civil society being kicked out of rooms where governments were negotiating. But there are also stories of non-state actors getting a chance to address government delegates at every plenary session, commenting on the latest draft of the outcome document. This involved working against the clock to get the text ready and photocopied in time so that all the interpreters had copies. And stories of hard-won consensus between different civil society groups, some of which were government-organised “non-governmental” organisations (GONGOs), which made difficult negotiations even more difficult.

But there are also stories of cross-stakeholder collaboration between civil society, the technical community and business on format and process, and adherence to the WSIS principles of participation. Even if we could not always agree among each other on specific substantive content proposals, we all agreed on the importance of transparency, access to information, and our right to be heard.

The reason why so many people care about the WSIS+20 review is that they have a sense of ownership of the WSIS vision, principles and goals, because they collaborated in their development and their input is reflected in the outcome documents.It is important that the WSIS+20 review honours both the WSIS outcomes and process. We have been working with the WSIS principles of participation that were first established in 2003 for the last 20 years. Moreover, these principles were elaborated and refined first in the NETmundial statement of 2014 and more recently in the 2024 Sao Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines (SPMGs).

These principles of participation are as relevant today as they were in 2003.

The February 2025 resolution on the modalities for the overall review by the UN General Assembly on the implementation of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society places significant emphasis on inputs from “all relevant stakeholders” in different stages of the process:

• In paragraph 1 it specifies that the preparatory process for the high-level meeting of the General Assembly must take into account inputs from all relevant WSIS stakeholders.
• In paragraph 3 it says that the president of the General Assembly, in consultation with member states, will invite, in addition to all member and observer states and observers, representatives of all relevant stakeholders to speak during the high-level meeting, and in this regard also encourages the participation of those stakeholders in the meeting.
• In paragraph 6 it says that during the preparatory process for the high-level meeting, the president of the General Assembly will organise informal interactive consultations with all relevant stakeholders of the World Summit on the Information Society, in order to collect their inputs for the intergovernmental negotiation process.

In other words, when it comes to “what” needs to be done to include stakeholders, there is a substantive commitment to be inclusive. But, achieving this in practice is not easy. We know, for example, that in spite of huge efforts by the co-facilitators and the United Nations Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies, many, if not most, non-state actors felt that the Global Digital Compact (GDC) consultation process was not sufficiently interactive or inclusive. This is actually very understandable if one considers that essentially, the GDC was a multilateral process, with multistakeholder input an add-on. This is also true for several other intergovernmental processes.

This is precisely the point that the SPMGs make. Treating non-state actor input as an add-on is not enough. Participation in multilateral processes needs to be “more inclusive to ensure the meaningful participation of all stakeholders, especially from the Global South.”

A way forward

How can the WSIS+20 review process draw inspiration from the Sao Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines to better include the perspectives and priorities of all stakeholders, especially those from the Global South and/or underrepresented communities?

By applying the SPMGs and process steps, the WSIS review process can honour the WSIS principles and produce a better and more legitimate outcome.

Let’s take a look at some concrete examples, based on the recommended process steps:

• Process step 6. Facilitate dialogue: Facilitate open dialogue, collaboration and deliberation among and between relevant stakeholders, encouraging respectful communication and consensus building. Consultations where one non-state actor after another has two minutes to make a statement, without governments (most of them anyway) being in the room, do not constitute dialogue.
• Process step 8. Factor in feedback from wider community: Adapt the draft outcomes taking into account the inputs stemming from the consultation, transparently reporting on how inputs were considered, and the corresponding reasons. This is key. If inputs just go into a black box without any feedback on what was included and what not, and why not, it results in a lack of transparency and loss of confidence in the integrity of the process.

We should also strengthen how the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) engages the WSIS review by intentional outreach to all elements of the IGF ecosystem—National and Regional IGFs, Dynamic Coalitions, Policy Networks, Best Practice Forums, the IGF Secretariat, Leadership Panel and the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) and its working groups—and ask them to assess their governance practices in light of the SPMGs and implement the necessary improvements.

The April 2025 negotiation at the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) on the zero draft of the resolution on “Assessment of the progress made in the implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society” was initially an example of bad practice when the documents being negotiated were not circulated to non-state actors who had registered for the event. But, when alerted to this by civil society participants the CSTD Secretariat responded positively by sending the document to non-state actors in the room who provided their email addresses. However, there are other ways in which the CSTD can become more inclusive in its application of the multistakeholder approach, for example by explaining the procedures for non-state actor participation in proceedings upfront, rather than on request or on the discretion of the chair.

But the SPMGs are not just of value to the design of the WSIS review process. They contain important advice for the outcomes too.

For example, the outcome of the WSIS+20 review can benefit from applying:

• Process step 11. Implementation and accountability in decision making: Establish mechanisms for implementing decisions and holding stakeholders accountable for their commitments. Stakeholder roles and responsibility vary, depending on the issue being addressed. But stakeholders, including governments, also need to be held accountable—for inclusive decision-making processes, but also for complying with collective agreements that result from these processes, and for achieving results that make a positive difference in people’s lives.

It is only by truly including the perspectives and priorities of all stakeholders, particularly from the Global South and underrepresented communities, that we give concrete meaning to the “people-centred, development-oriented and inclusive” information society that is the core vision of WSIS.

The WSIS+20 review is a unique opportunity to align the commitment to “establishing the principle of multistakeholderism as a central element of digital governance, drawing on experience in the technical governance of the Internet”—stated in the CSTD WSIS+20 background documentation—with the SPMGs, and by doing so, to increase the representation and visibility of underrepresented actors and perspectives.¹ It would also help to counteract the concentration of power and fragmentation of collaborative governance—for instance, the convergence between corporate and state power in the United States, which threatens the WSIS vision of an inclusive information society, and the value of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

We need better, more inclusive and accountable multilateral governance for effective application of the multistakeholder approach.

Let’s use the SPMGs to both honour the WSIS achievements in building inclusive processes and to build on them going forward.

This piece is an adapted version of APC’s intervention at the “28th CSTD side event: Workshop on building a WSIS plus fit for purpose”, which took place on 9 April 2025 in Geneva.