Closing Ceremony and Chair’s WSIS+20 Forum High-Level Event Summary

WSIS Plus 20 Forum concludes with a call for inclusive digital cooperation and alignment with SDGs

The WSIS Plus 20 Forum High-Level Event 2024 concluded with a series of reflective and forward-looking statements from a diverse array of stakeholders, encapsulating the achievements and aspirations of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) over the past two decades. The event underscored the critical role of WSIS in fostering an inclusive information society and highlighted the need for continued digital cooperation, meaningful connectivity, and alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

ITU Secretary-General Ms. Doreen Bogdan-Martin provided a compelling narrative of the WSIS journey, characterising it as a tale of contrasts and evolution. She underscored the imperative to bridge the digital divide and ensure that digital technologies are accessible, affordable, and meaningful for all. Emphasising the story of inclusion beyond mere access, she spoke of the importance of skills and participation in the digital sphere in a way that is safe and equitable for all. Ms. Bogdan-Martin called for the WSIS community to renew its commitment to multi-stakeholder digital cooperation and to leverage the WSIS process in the follow-up of the Global Digital Compact.

Participants from various sectors, including government representatives, civil society, and the private sector, acknowledged the achievements of the WSIS process and the value of the multi-stakeholder approach. They discussed the role of digital technologies as critical infrastructure and the need for a holistic approach to digital transformation that empowers socio-economic development and leaves no one behind.

The event highlighted the importance of youth engagement, capacity building, and the active role of small states in the digital landscape. Speakers called for the WSIS principles and action lines to be maintained as a central reference point for global digital discussions and for the WSIS process to be strengthened and leveraged in future international negotiations.

A recurring theme throughout the closing remarks was the need for inclusivity and the recognition of the contributions of various stakeholders. Civil society organisations, such as the Conference of Non-Governmental Organisations (Congo), praised the inclusive nature of the WSIS process and urged for its continuation beyond 2025. The importance of civil society’s contributions, alongside those of the private sector, was highlighted as a key factor in the success of the WSIS process.

The role of ITU and other UN agencies in the Global Digital Compact was emphasised, particularly in ensuring that small states have their voices heard and play an active role in digital development. The discussion led by Lithuania and Singapore on meaningful connectivity for small states served as a testament to the opportunities and challenges faced by these nations in the digital age.

The inclusivity of the event’s format was also commended, with participants appreciating the open and participatory nature of the discussions. The Institute for Global Negotiation expressed its readiness to support the many negotiations ahead in Geneva and New York, highlighting the importance of inclusive dialogue in international cooperation.

In conclusion, the Secretary-General thanked the partners, sponsors, and participants for their contributions and expressed anticipation for strengthened engagement at the Summit of the Future and the next WSIS Forum. The closing session of the WSIS Plus 20 Forum High-Level Event 2024 was a testament to the enduring relevance of the WSIS process and the collective commitment to building a more sustainable and inclusive digital world for present and future generations.

Gitanjali Sah:
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We are about to begin the closing of the WSIS Plus 20 Forum High-Level Event. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We’d like you to please take your seats. We are about to begin the closing of the WSIS Plus 20 Forum High-Level Event. Thank you so much. Dear stakeholders, excellencies, and our WSIS participants, we are drawing the WSIS Plus 20 Forum High-Level Event to a close. What an exciting five days that we’ve had together. And we’d like to invite the Secretary General of ITU, Ms. Doreen Bogdan-Martin, to please provide her concluding remarks.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin:
Thank you. Thank you, Gitanjali, and good afternoon, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. I thought I would come to the lectern to advertise my new red T-shirt, so thank you to the WSIS team. More than two decades ago, WSIS set out to carve a path towards an inclusive information society that works for everyone. I think what we have seen over the past week is that we are well on our way, but we have yet to reach our final destination. There are three thoughts I’d like to leave you with as we wrap up the WSIS Plus 20 High Level Event 2024. The first is that the WSIS journey is and always has been a story of contrasts. It’s looking back on and learning from 20 years of digital cooperation as we look ahead to the summit of the future and the WSIS Plus 20 review. It’s countries at different stages of development tackling the same problems, challenges of making digital work for people on the ground, especially the most vulnerable, no matter where they live. It’s the story of closing the persistent digital divide and avoiding the creation of new divides, no matter how fast technology moves, even with the number of people connected having grown 17 fold since 2005. It’s the story of inclusion beyond access, encompassing affordability, skills, and all the elements that make connectivity and participation in the digital sphere meaningful, safe, and equitable for all. WSIS is the story of digital technologies becoming critical infrastructure bolstered by technical standards and of protecting, maintaining, and strengthening that infrastructure while also minimizing its impact on our planet. It’s celebrating the positive. development impact of e-commerce on trade and economic growth while facilitating sometimes tough conversations about what technologies like generative AI might mean for the new world of work. It’s also the story of diversifying the 60% of the Internet currently published in English with concepts like multilingualism strengthened by the WSIS outcomes like the Internet Governance Forum which brings together the international digital policy debate to local communities worldwide. WSIS’s second takeaway is that WSIS, the WSIS story is actually one of evolution and actually adaptation. The outcomes of the high-level week have shown that the multi-stakeholder process has proven value over and over. WSIS has been constant amid constant change, I would say, withstanding the test of time amid major technological shifts. And as we look to envisage the role of the WSIS in this crucial decade and beyond, let’s remember the wisdom that emerged from this week’s ministerial roundtable. To seize the WSIS plus 20 review as an opportunity, an opportunity to look back at our achievements, look around at the global context, and look forward, as our chair mentioned, look forward to making the WSIS process fit for purpose and fit for the future. I want to thank each of you for actively participating in this week’s Many, Many, Many- discussions. I think at Tanjali we had 200 different sessions, so thank you all for participating in those many discussions and for showing your dedication to the success of this time-tested multi-stakeholder process. And my third takeaway, I think the WSIS story is still being written. It’s underpinned by the core UN values at the heart of the WSIS principles and the outcome documents. It’s where we keep holding a mirror up to our own stories as we, the implementers of the WSIS Action Lines, look to improve our own digital capacity and transformation. It’s a story that continues to make history when the WSIS community joined, partnered to connect to celebrate more than US$50 billion mobilized to promote meaningful connectivity in the hardest-to-connect parts of this world. And, as we heard repeatedly over the past five days, the story of the Global Digital Compact must be rooted in the same multi-stakeholder approach that has made the WSIS so successful. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s up to us to write the next chapter. It’s governments, it’s the private sector, it’s academia, it’s civil society, the technical community, international organizations, all holding the pen together. As we approach the summit of the future and the final stages of the WSIS Plus 20 review, I call on this community to renew our commitment to multi-stakeholder digital cooperation that we know works, to continuing to align the WSIS Action Lines with the SDGs, especially by linking linking them to concrete outcomes in health, education, and other areas of sustainable development, and to leverage and strengthen the time tested with this process as a critical vehicle in the follow-up of the Global Digital Compact. Colleagues, let’s finish what we started two decades ago and use it to leave no one behind as we build a more sustainable and inclusive digital world for present and future generations. I look forward to sharing the outcomes of this week’s work as part of our overall input to the UNGA Crisis Plus 20 review, and of course, we look forward to welcoming you all back with your T-shirts next year, from starting the 7th of June to the 13th for the next WSIS Forum. Thank you very much.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you, Secretary Gantt. Yes, indeed, it was an exciting week, and thank you for your leadership and your leadership and guidance. As we know that we have over 50 UN agencies and partners working with us, and our co-organizers are also represented here today, joined by Mr. Rob Aup. Would you like to say a few words for the closing, Mr. Aup, please?

Robert Opp:
Thank you so much, Gitanjali, and thank you, Doreen, for the inspirational words, which I fully subscribe to. Just a couple of thoughts from our side. It’s been a great week, and I do think that we can all congratulate ITU and the Secretariat of WSIS, as well as the team working on AI. for good for putting a huge amount of content and opportunity for discussion in a multi-stakeholder format across these two events, bringing us together and cross-fertilizing in a way that enriches this community. So I really want to thank the hard-working people in the ITU team that have pulled this all together. And we couldn’t be more happy to work with our UN partners as well, not just ITU but UNESCO and UNCTAD also as part of the co-organizing part of the UN community behind this. And it really is a pleasure to work on this project together. I think the current events highlight the importance of this community and Doreen mentioned some of these, the Global Digital Compact and the Summit of the Future. I think more importantly for us even it’s also the needs and demand that we see coming from our partner countries around the world. And UNDP which has digital programs in over 120 countries, we receive these signals about what’s important for and on the agenda when it comes to digital transformation at the national level. And it is remarkable in a way that 20 years ago the vision and principles that were set down as part of WSIS actually still hold up very well. And we need to work moving forward as we look at the WSIS plus 20 and we look at how we’re going to structure the next set of action lines. How are we going to build in the massive needs that are still out there in terms of capacity building? How are we thinking about cybersecurity? How are we building sustainability into our approach from an environmental angle? And how is digital transformation empowering social economic development for everyone and leaving no one behind? So we very much look forward to strengthening the process over the next year as we complete as Doreen said the WSIS plus 20 process, continue to work across the multi-stakeholder community that WSIS represents and really trying to focus our attention and the attention of the world on these. These issues which digital transformation truly can deliver strong human development for all, leaving no one behind. Thank you.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you, UNDP. We have the representative of UNESCO, Mr. Davide Sorti. Davide, over to you.

Davide Sorti:
Thank you, Secretary General, for the great collaboration in the WSIS process together with UNDP, UNCTAD and the World UNGIS, the United Nations Group on Information Society, which UNESCO has now the honour and the burden to chair for the coming year, and which reiterated its commitment to the WSIS process and implementation of the WSIS Action Lines, emphasising the importance of aligning the WSIS and SDG processes. We cannot but agree with Secretary General. As UNESCO Dr. Gerasi said, digital development is about empowering people with the knowledge and tools to thrive in our interconnected world. These guiding principles resonate deeply in the mission of the WSIS and its Action Lines. Twenty years later, the digital divide remains indeed a major concern. We are now increasingly focusing on how to advance towards the societies that we have advocated for. At UNESCO, we actively support the WSIS plan of action through research capacity building, policy support and the multi-stakeholder dialogue. The WSIS remains a strong example of global digital cooperation. Working together with all stakeholders, we collectively make a difference by joining forces in action. Reaffirming its commitment to the upcoming WSIS Plus 20 review, UNESCO will continue to work with ITU, UNDP, UNCTAD and all the WSIS multi-stakeholder community to ensure that global efforts continue to evolve and adapt to a digitally inclusive and sustainable future. Finally, I would like to thank you for your time. I’d like to also thank all of those who made this great WSIS plus 20 event possible. Gitanjali, Ruth, Tara, Vladimir, all the many people that are behind the scenes. And I’d also like to thank you, the WSIS community, for your continued and unwavering commitment to the WSIS process. Thank you.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you, Davide. Thank you, Davide. I’d like to invite representative of CONTACT, Thomas, over to you, please.

Panelist:
Thank you very much. It has been a real pleasure to be here this week with our co-organizers and all stakeholders for this event. And although this is a closing ceremony, we’re also looking forward to continued discussions on digitalization and development in the run up of the Summit of the Future in September and also in the context of the WSIS plus 20 review process going into 2025. The forum and the review are taking place in the middle of negotiations for the Global Digital Compact, which reflects the call for increased international digital cooperation as we move closer to the deadline of the 2030 agenda. In addition, as you might know, UN Trade and Development access the Secretariat to the Commission on Science and Technology for Development, which is charged with reviewing the progress made in the implementation and follow up on the WSIS outcomes at the regional and international level. The commission actually met just before the forum in April of this year, and we invite you to visit the outcome documents of that meeting online. It also marks the 60th anniversary of UN Trade and Development, and we’re celebrating this with a global leaders forum that takes place in less than two weeks from 12 to 14 of June. And you will be able to follow this online as well. I would like to invite you to follow the panel dialogue Shaping a Digital Future for People and Planet on the 13th of June, which for which we also will count on the presence of the ITU Secretary General and the Special Envoy on Technology of the Office of the UN Secretary General. As you know, there are different forums that seek to address development impact of digitalization and with 20 years of experience the WSIS takes a very special role in this area. And the current review offers a unique opportunity to draw important lessons for taking impactful digital cooperation beyond 2025. UN trade and development remains committed as well to supporting countries in navigating the evolving digital economy and understanding its implications for inclusive and sustainable development. And in closing, I would like to thank the ITU team for taking the lead in organizing the forum and also join the Secretary General in thanking all of you for the rich contributions and discussions this week. And we are looking forward to an exciting year ahead as well. Thank you.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you. Thank you Oktag. We would now like to invite our representative of our chair, Mr. Ambassador Thomas Schneider representing Swiss Confederation to please deliver the closing remarks and the chair’s summary.

Thomas Schneider:
Dear colleagues and friends on behalf of Federal Councillor Albert Rösti representing Switzerland as chair of the WSIS Plus 20 forum high-level event. It is my privilege to welcome you to this closing ceremony. His Excellency would like to let you know that even though he unfortunately cannot be here in person with us today. He was briefed about the extensive and important discussions we all had this week and asked me to pass. the following message on his behalf and those that know me and know how much I hate to wear ties I’m representing my minister so I’m wearing a tie because this is what government officials do so I will take it off later again so just to clarify that question in case so this is it dear secretary general dear deputy secretary general dear ministers deputies excellencies colleagues from all the UN agencies and other institutions ladies and gentlemen we can look back on a very exciting week WSIS forum has brought together over 7 000 participants physically and remotely from 160 countries including 500 high-level representatives including CEOs ministers deputies heads of organizations and ambassadors as we’ve heard we had nearly 200 sessions including high-level plenary sessions interactive sessions knowledge cafes exhibitions WSIS prizes and special prize ceremonies and the ministers roundtable over 100 speakers and experts share their insights on various aspects of the digital landscape we covered a broad spectrum of topics including cyber security and trust artificial intelligence emerging technologies meaningful access to infrastructure as well as content and the digital device the overarching goal of WSIS was to create a path towards an inclusive people-centered and development-oriented information knowledge and digital society although much has changed since then discussions have shown that WSIS outcomes remain highly relevant the WSIS principles and action lines continue to serve as a pertinent framework for discussions on digital policy and governance issues WSIS values and principles have been referenced in many policy documents over the years and they have been further developed in the framework of instruments such as for example just to cite one UNESCO’s Rome principles multi-stakeholder mechanisms emanating from WSIS like the IGF and the WSIS Forum have stood the test of time and they have adapted their focus to reflect the fast evolving digital space and the opportunities and challenges associated with both so-called old and new and even frontier digital technologies. The exchanges of the WSIS plus 20 forum high-level event and at the UN’s first AI governance day organized in conjunction with the AI for good global summit which was held in parallel on that building over there as we know have shown that emerging issues like governance of AI are omnipresent in the discussion in all WSIS processes. It also has become clear and visible that all relevant international organizations mandated with technical standardization already cooperate not only among each other but together with experts in the field of social and economic development, human rights and inclusion so that new technologies like AI are not merely seen as technical issues but technology is part of all digital policies. We have heard broad agreement that these existing structures like the WSIS Forum, AI for good global summit, the IGF and so on should be the basis not only to further implementing the WSIS vision but also that they should be further strengthened and leveraged through the global digital compact and its implementation because all these processes should serve the same shared goal of further developing inclusive people-centered and development-oriented digital information and knowledge societies which enable all people in the world to benefit from new technologies including AI so that no one is left behind. Moving forward they have the legitimacy and the experience needed to continue to serve as inclusive spaces where UN agencies, international and regional organizations governments, private sector, the technical community, civil society come together to address their digital issues in inclusive, informed and impactful ways, learning from each other and drawing inspiration from both multilateral and multi-stakeholder approaches. As mentioned at the beginning of the week, when I, i.e. the minister, was appointed chair of the WSIS plus 20 forum high-level event, the council working group on WSIS and SDGs of the I2 invited the chair to prepare chairman’s summary to complement the outcome documents of this high-level event. So our summary will not replace but be our addition to the much longer documentation that will report in much more detail about all the rich discussions that were held over these five days. So what we did is basically the impossible given and if we had an AI accounting mechanism or summarizing mechanism that we may have next year for instance would have been easier to summarize the 12.745678 million words said this week into a few pages. So what we did was we compiled the comments and tried to make a factual summary which elaborates on the most important points from the chair’s perspective. The summary has now been published on the WSIS plus 20 forum high-level event website for your consideration. So I hope you all took advantage of this unique opportunity offered by WSIS forum to learn from experiences of others, to hear about initiatives, to close the digital divide where others see risk and dangers, what opportunities there are, how this WSIS process should deal with them and how the WSIS processes can contribute to shaping our digital future together in the best possible way. In closing I would like to again express my sincere gratitude to the ITU, UNESCO, UNDP, UNCTAD and all other partners for their invaluable support in organizing this forum. And on a personal note, I really have witnessed a true spirit of cooperation, not competition, but cooperation, not just among the UN agencies, but among all partners, stakeholders present. And I’m deeply convinced that this spirit of cooperation, to work together on the same goals based on a shared vision, based on shared values, is the only way to achieve the goals that we fixed 20 years earlier, that we may also fix in September this year. So I’m looking forward to cooperate with all of you in the future. Thank you very much.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin:
Thank you. Thank you so much, Ambassador Schneider. Thank you for that succinct summary. And as you noted, it’s already available online. And just to say on behalf of the team, we’re very grateful for the leadership of Switzerland in this whole process. Your ongoing and continued support, we really appreciate that. And I must say, you took the tie off already? I was going to say you look good in a tie, but you’ve taken it off already. I do want to also thank my UN colleagues, as you said. I think it’s been a great spirit of collaboration amongst all of us, but in particular, I think we have a great UN team here on the podium and also in the crowd. I think UNGIS is getting stronger and stronger. And really, thank you to UNDP, to UNESCO, UNCTAD and the others in the room. But let me also, ladies and gentlemen, recognize my colleague, Gitanjali, our leader here. She and the WSIS team have have done a tremendous job, including our interns. And we wouldn’t be able to do this. Maybe our interns could stand. We wouldn’t. Thank you so much for your passion, your energy, and your commitment. This really has been a sort of whole of, on the IT side, a whole of ITU, one ITU approach. I recognize my deputy, Thomas Limanowskis, who’s fully committed to the WSIS process. The BDT director, Dr. Cosmos Zabazaba. I think we don’t have Cezanne Maria with us, but of course, the other two directors are equally committed. And we also share the implementation of action lines across the ITU. We have other ITU staff members who are very supportive. I would ask them to also stand. I think most of them are on my left, but they may also be on my right. If you could stand for a moment, I’ll embarrass you. ITU colleagues, Sophie, Adele, Stan, please. Thank you. And we did have this time at the WSIS Forum, our regional director. We haven’t had them with us for the WSIS Forum before. So I think that’s also been very helpful in terms of keeping this cooperative spirit going. So special thanks to them. And with that, I have the great pleasure of presenting a certificate and a medal to the chair of the WSIS Plus 20 high-level event. So it’s Switzerland, the Confederation of Switzerland. Ambassador Schneider will accept it on behalf of his excellency, Mr. Albert Rusty, the Federal Counselor for the Department of Environment, Transport, Energy, and Communications. Ambassador.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you very much, Secretary General and Ambassador Schneider. It was a great pleasure to work with you and your team, especially Nikola, Hassan, and all of those involved. So thank you so much. for their dedication and commitment towards the business profits. Thank you very much. We would now like to open the floor to comments, interventions, and anything that you’d like to share. I see already Dr. Liberato, President of Congo, with us, please.

Audience:
Excellencies, Secretary General Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Ambassador Thomas Snyder, collaborators within the U.N. system in the WSIS team, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Liberato Bautista, President of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations. Congo and its more than 600 NGO members congratulate you all and we are honored to be part and partner of you for the last 20 years. At this year’s WSIS, Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Laureate and a compatriot of mine, has been quoted several times for her profound insight. Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without these three, we have no shared reality, no rule of law, no democracy. I suggest that this quote encapsulates the essence of our discussions and underscores the crucial role of these elements in shaping our digital society. At the WSIS forums, we have witnessed the power of democratic participation. By upholding the values of facts, truth, and trust, we have created here at WSIS a space where all stakeholders can voice their opinions and contribute to every aspect of the forum. This inclusivity extends even to intergovernmental processes fostering a culture of openness and respect. This culture is present. and must be nurtured at WSIS meetings. As in the opening, I also say in this closing ceremony that the WSIS conferences of 2003 and 2005 started and modeled, including the WSIS forums, that of a participatory, consultative, collaborative and innovative relationship between the UN system and civil society organizations must be continued and prospered beyond 2025, certainly into the future. WSIS truly represents what digital global collaboration should be, cementing a multi-stakeholder model unlike any other UN venue or event. Over the past 20 years, the presence of NGOs at WSIS-related meetings has been a smooth process. We didn’t have to fight for it as we do in other venues. With more than 50 UN agencies involved, the WSIS forum has brought them together and allowed them to create a framework collaboration. I must thank Ambassador Snyder for his attentive presence and patient listening to the reports of this year’s high-level track facilitators, ensuring that the widest breadth of discussions among the many stakeholders present here are captured in his report. This is why it is essential to keep the WSIS principles and action lines in front of what we do, because they serve as a central reference point for global digital discussions, including as governments negotiate the pact for the future and the global digital compact. Excellencies, friends, let me end. The world today is in excess of fear and in deficit of hope. We must together work to develop ICTs that are implements. of life, of hope, and of peace. The digital divide will widen unless we reverse this sorry condition. Communications and digital rights and justice play a major role in reversing this surfeit of fear and deficit of hope. At a time of shrinking public space and democratic discourse, the values nurtured through the principles and action lines held high at WSIS will augur well in our common project to build a society and a future that are just, safe, gender-sensitive, equitable, peaceable, prosperous, and sustainable. Congo commits to this task, not the least with you in all this joint enterprise called WSIS, its process, and its review. Thank you very much.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you, Mr. Bautista. Mei-Lin, please go ahead.

Audience:
Hello, everyone. My name is Mei-Lin Fung. I’m the co-founder of the People-Centered Internet with Vince Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet. I would like to congratulate WSIS, especially WSIS Plus 20 this year, which is the 50th anniversary of the internet. The internet has made so much possible. Digital transformation would not be possible without the internet. But the real thing that has made able the internet to contribute is people. What I learned from Vince Cerf is that the internet was fueled by friendship. And that’s what I want to give understanding and tribute to WSIS, that over 20 years, friendships have… developed, and this will take us through, thick and thin. It will help us get to the SDGs by 2030, because when people work together, nothing is impossible. Thank you, Gitanjali especially, for your leadership of WSIS, and the ability to bring a WSIS stocktaking repository gathers the data that allows any country to find out how do I move forward? But when we gather the WSIS stocktaking repository and put it with the pledges of partner to connect $50 billion of pledges, suddenly we have a road that any developing country and advanced country can say, even on ChatGPT, how should I proceed? Take a look. We don’t have to wait for somebody to write it all up. Ask. Thank you.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you. Thank you, Maylin. I’d like to request everybody to be really short, maybe one minute each, because we can see many hands across the room. Christine, how’s it? Over to you.

Audience:
Thank you very much. I will be short. I’m with Ethic Minds Institute. We express gratitude to the ITU for your support for what we deem an essential and very important session on children and youth as stakeholders in the metaverse, ethical implications. We had a very rich discussion. We were grappling with the many issues that we know and agree are on the table and under addressed, such as bullying, harassment, pornographic exposure, becoming prey of predators. self-image problems, isolation, addiction, to name a few. And we also grappled with the emerging metaverse spaces and children very quickly being surrounded by AIs continuing amplifying these, as well as, of course, amplifying all the creativity and enrichment that we focus on in our discussions. But our role in this session was to grapple and grasp the identity of children in these spaces, and especially to look at another concept that we don’t acknowledge or deal with in any of our spaces very diligently. And that is the fact that children and youth transact economically, contribute to the economy and the future choices of tech companies. They create, they play, they make choices about where to go and what to do in these virtual spaces. And so our workshop reached quite a consensus that this identity of stakeholders needs to be processed and we need to, in an urgent manner, convene. And one recommendation that emerged was a focus group on children as stakeholders in standard settings for emerging tech, or even a new action line.

Gitanjali Sah:
Christelle, I think your summary will be uploaded online so everybody can read it there. Thank you so much for this great workshop that you had and this collaboration that we have had with you, Christelle. We’d like to move on to APC, Association for Progressive Communication. Anirudh, was it?

Audience:
Thank you very much, Gitanjali. I think my colleague, Carlos Baca, is in the room. Carlos, are you here? If he’s not here, then… I will just briefly, so on behalf of Association for Progressive Communications, we are an international network with more than a hundred members around the world. And we’ve been part of the WSIS from the outset. I want to thank really very warmly, Her Excellency Doreen, Ambassador Schneider and the UN agencies. And Gitanjali, you are a miraculous worker and the way in which you work with your team, it’s just a pleasure to watch. But to thank you all, I think this has been a very significant forum. And I think both for those of us like APC, who’s been part of the process from the outset, as well as the many newcomers who are coming here with new ideas and new energy and new needs. I want to congratulate this revived dynamic UNGASS and I look forward to much more collaboration of that UNGASS. I think leadership and coordination from within the UN system is vital for all of us. We cannot have effective multi-stakeholder collaboration in this space without your leadership, without your facilitation. So thank you very much for the opportunity and we look forward to being with you for the next 30 years.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you. Thank you, Anne-Marie. I have Ambassador Andras from the GD Universities Hub.

Audience:
Thank you very much. First of all, thank you for ITU and WSIS for the truly multi-stakeholder approach. And let me focus on one stakeholder group, the local and regional governments. Let me also thank Deputy Director Bilal Jemmoussi, who met on behalf of ITU with the mayors who participated this year’s session. And thank you Gitanjali and your team for the wonderful organization. The Smart City Leaders Talk, the Global Cities Hub had the pleasure to organize and discuss the issue of people-centered and sustainable smart city. development and provided a great example of an inclusive dialogue between international organizations and local governments on this crucial topic. The speakers agreed that one of the main tasks of leaders like you is to be able to promote the smartness of a community, use the opportunities offered by digital technology and mitigate the associated risks all at the same time. The mindful matching of technology and citizens’ real needs is the only successful and sustainable way forward. We know that too many citizens remain digitally excluded, so the principles of exclusivity, equity and accessibility should serve as the right starting points for building people-centered smart cities. International discussions like races or AI at next door are the right places. Yes, to closing, I’d like to say that we need to establish an international framework for local and national governments to work more closely together to ensure that local digital government infrastructure is in place and contributes to sustainable development. It would open a new chapter in the basis story, as Secretary General said, after 20 years and I think it would contribute to localizing SDGs successfully. Thank you very much.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you. Thank you, Arash. Do we have any other hands up that we may have missed? Yes, please go ahead.

Audience:
Okay, my name is Nazar Nicholas from Tanzania and I’m very glad to be the WSIS winner this year. And if anybody was ever in doubt that what WISC plus 20 is meant, is that WISC plus 20 years is real. And it is recognizing efforts that are happening on the ground. For example, I have been engaged in efforts to connect the unconnected for the last 10, 15 years. But with these little efforts to help young people train on digital skills, young girls to engage in STEM, and also to train other people and everybody to be able to know what the internet is, only these efforts have been recognized by WISC. And I thank you so much, because you are helping those of us who are doing wonderful things on the grassroots to be recognized. I have never been recognized for anything. So this is for those who are actually doing wonderful things on the ground, but are not currently being recognized by anybody, but WISC is doing it. Thank you so much.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you. Thank you very much, Mrs. Gijentali.

Audience:
My name is Riyad Bansia. I’m not talking on behalf of Congo, because I’m not anymore in Congo. And I appreciate when everybody underlines on the contribution of civil society and NGOs. And we’ll see how much it has been determinated in WISC’s process since 20 years ago. Hopefully, nobody raised that civil society is competing with the private sector. Because what I want to share right now is what we did also with some scientific organizations who are also part of the WISC. civil society last December and two governments such as one international organization which is sitting in a panel which the support of the chairperson of the UN General Assembly was present with us will enter the international decade for sciences to for development sustainable development and ITU is not yet engaged but this is a new framework for the future with this process of course everybody is welcome such as government international organizations and scientific organizations thank you very much.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you very much Mr. Salar Sena.

Audience:
Thank you to Tanjali excellencies colleagues so again wonderful work it was an amazing summit very proud to participate since eight years the reality the notion of reality has never been as much challenge as today and intersecting with spatial computing I think that the challenges are big opportunities are big so the relevance of this summit is so important and I also love the fact that you’ve been putting it together with AI for good and see so many people coming I was nine years old when there was telecom 995 I’m from Geneva it’s with great pride to see so many people I think we’re ready to host even more people now we engage myself personally my community the whole world excellent community to join and further support you we love it amazing thank you so much everyone and all the team.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you very much Salar for bringing innovation to the WSIS forum every year. Dr. Mercedes head of regulatory from Uruguay. Ladies and gentlemen

Audience:
thank you very much as we come to the close of this extraordinary event I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the ITU and the entire team for organizing such as an insightful and impactful gathering. This event has provided us with a unique opportunity to engage various stakeholders within the ecosystem learn from diverse experiences and witness the latest advancements in AI. These discussions and presentations have been enlightening, showing cases not only the tremendous potential of AI, but also the significant challenges we face as we move forward. It is evident that our path ahead demands collective effort. We must work together to universalize education, place people at the center of our initiatives, and uphold human rights while fostering innovation. These are not just lofty goals, but essential pillars for a sustainable and inclusive future. Thank you once again to the ITU and to everyone involved in making this event a success. Let us continue to collaborate, innovate, and drive positive change for a better world. Thank you.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you. Thank you, Ma’am, for being with us this year and previous years as well. Thank you for your commitment. Do we see any guests? James from Huawei. Huawei is also a partner of the WSIS Forum. Over to you, James. Thank you.

Audience:
Thank you. At the closing ceremony, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to those who made this event possible. A special thank you to you, Mr. Gitanjali, for your coordination and organization. Your efforts have made this year’s summit more diverse, informed, and more inclusive in the content. I would like to express my gratitude to the WSIS team, Taylor, Ruth, Vladimir, and Zhu Chen, for their meticulous preparation. They successfully organized over 200 different sessions. A big thanks to the WSIS interim team. Their guidance for every speaker ensures the smooth progress of our summit, helping us navigate through the extensive agenda with ease. On behalf of Huawei as a private sector, it is an honor to be a partner of WSIS for the fourth year. We are honored to share our experience in capacity building, universal connection, and building confidence in ICT infrastructure. We are looking forward to contribute to WSIS in the future and to build a stable infrastructure. people-centric, inclusive, and development-oriented information and knowledge societies, ensures that no one is left behind. Thank you.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you. Thank you, Huawei. We would now like to invite the Ambassador of Lithuania, sir, to please take the floor. Excellency.

Audience:
Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I first want to thank the Secretary-General, Ambassador Schneider, for an excellent and impressive forum, and also thank all the participants, all the fellow participants of this, who made this happen. I would like to address you and then to share our experience about a discussion that we have with small states toward meaningful connectivity, which was led by Lithuania and Singapore. And this, in the true spirit of this event, brought together many countries from different regions and allowed us to share lessons learned and future perspectives, and probably key takeaways of this event were that small states have many opportunities which would serve as key drivers to achieve meaningful connectivity and contribute to achieving SDGs. The digital transformation is not just about digital. We need a holistic approach. Business processes, including business action lines and business forum, have proven to be a tested platform for advancing digital development and digital transformation for small states, from practice sharing to finding and promoting innovative solutions and collaboration partners. And the ITU and Global Digital Compact should safeguard this direction and ensure small states are heard and have their role to play in the future, ensuring that digital continues to boost our development and development for all. I thank you.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you. Thank you, excellency. Before we close, I’m just checking if there are any hands on the floor. Sir, please.

Audience:
Thank you, Madam Chair. Jérôme Bellion-Jordan, Institute for Global Negotiation. plan to take the floor but I just wanted to mark appreciation for the format of this discussion. I think all too often we have formats when we say we are going to be inclusive but not necessarily very inclusive and I think the format of this discussion and we see this exemplary in the way you have for instance allowed for speakers to take the floor at the closing in the way there was no pre-registration no pre-established list of speakers so I think I just wanted to mark appreciation for that and to reiterate that on our side as an institute for global negotiation we stand ready obviously to support the many negotiations ahead here in Geneva and in New York so congratulations to the ITU to the chair and it’s very inclusive format of the deliberation

Gitanjali Sah:
thank you thank you thank you thank you sir for your participation and thank you to okay we have Japan and if you could please be very brief and take the floor

Audience:
thank you very much and congratulations on this five days big event thank you for hosting this government and ITU this great event and I’d like to say it is important that the activity of Geneva UN agencies which is steam that should be known to the people in discussion in GDC and including this kind of activities should be included in GDC in order to avoid duplication between activities and I we believe that the role of ITU is very important in the GDC especially in the connectivity section and and this AI for Good event also important in the CDC Section 5. So anyway, thank you very much for this successful event. Thank you.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you, and thank Japan for your partnership. We will now… Okay, so we have Anthony Wong, President of IWIB. Very short statement, please, sir.

Audience:
Thank you for the invitation to WSIS 2024 this year and supporting partner. I’d like to congratulate WSIS for a great event of the last couple of days. And also our involvement with UNESCO over a number of sessions, including AI for Judiciary, which is a very important topic and another topic on human rights with AI and on cyber security. So we also looked at the WSIS process for the next 20 years with UNESCO on e-science and open standards. So thank you for the opportunity and our contribution from IWIB to WSIS. Thank you.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you. Thank you to IWIB for being such a close partner for so many years. We really appreciate the kind words that you have all expressed for the WSIS team, for myself. And I’d also like to acknowledge the guidance that we’ve all received from Ms. Suleyman Abdullah, our chief. So thank you so much, Suleyman, for your guidance and for being there for us always. So Secretary General says there’s one more hand at the back. Yes, please go ahead. Please go ahead, sir.

Audience:
Thank you so much. My name is Anand. I’m from Nepal. And this is the first time I’m attending WSIS process. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I have a couple of queries and comments that could be made. We are 20 years past WSIS process and there are two platforms given to us. One is IGF and another is WSIS, which actually advocates for the multi-stakeholder participation in digital cooperation. As a young person attending WSIS, on course was a bit difficult. And is there any kind of thing that WSIS could support young stakeholder to be part of this process in the future? Because it is very important. And another thing is what are the common ways that WSIS and IGF could take forward? Because these are the two things that are very excellent. And we are just before the GDC, how do we contribute the multi-stakeholder process in the GDC is very important. And there are existing 170 plus national and regional initiative within the IGF framework. And when we work in the national level, we barely find the cooperation with UN agencies. They don’t know about the multi-stakeholder process and all kinds of thing. There is already UNDP, there is UNESCO, there are many UN agencies, but they don’t recognize what multi-stakeholder process is in the national level. So how can this cooperation be done? That is one of my question. And another thing is how this WSIS process can help young people to have their voices in the summit of the future. We are very near to that. The document recognizes that, but there’s no consideration how young people like me can be part of that. Thank you so much.

Gitanjali Sah:
Thank you. Thank you so much for being here with us and thank you for traveling all the way from Nepal. We did help facilitate your travel. So thank you so much for being here with us. And we have taken your comments into consideration. This is a start. several young people in leadership roles at the high-level event. We had the board member from our secretary general’s youth board facilitating one of the leader’s talks. So we did have participation from young people. And we’ve taken your points into consideration. And we’ll be in touch to explore this further. Thank you very much. I would like to hand over the floor to our secretary general to please make her closing remarks and close this meeting.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin:
Thank you. Thank you so much, Gitanjali. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for those interventions and for the encouragement and the commitment, I would say, to continue. We take good note, as Gitanjali mentioned, of some of the suggestions. We can always improve. And our efforts are to be as multi-stakeholder as possible and, of course, as inclusive as we can be. As we close out, and we’ll close out the AI for Good in some moments, I do want to also thank our incredible partners and sponsors in front of me. I have our friends and longstanding partners from the United Arab Emirates. Thank you very much. Saudi Arabia, the DCO, Japan, Huawei, IEEE, Aurora, the UK, the EU, ICANN, ISAC, Wallonia, Brussels, GLOA, and IFIP. And I hope I didn’t forget anyone. But as you can see, there are many partners, many sponsors that make this possible. And of course, all of you, your active participation really makes it so meaningful and helps us to advance commitments. So with that. I thank you again. We look forward to strengthened engagement as we move forward to the Summit of the Future and next year’s WSIS Forum. Thank you very much.