Delivered on 17 December 2025 at the High-level Meeting of the General Assembly on the overall review of the implementation of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+20) by Olaf Kolkman, Principal, Internet Technology, Policy, and Advocacy. Watch the recording of the speech and read the transcript below.
Madam President, Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues, I am honored to be here with you today, speaking on behalf of the Internet Society, one of the many stakeholders that make up the global Internet community.
We commend this assembly for recognizing the borderless and collaborative nature of the Internet.
It is an acknowledgement of the physical reality that networks must interoperate in order to function. And it is an affirmation of the multistakeholder model of Internet governance that has so effectively served our collective goals throughout the decades.
Thank you.
In bringing together the best expertise from across governments, academia, civil society, industry, and the technical community, we have been able to build and maintain a network that has helped countries experience historic economic growth and opportunities.
But our work is far from done. 2.2 billion people still lack meaningful connectivity. They depend on the Internet for economic growth, and access to public services, education and healthcare. They need the Internet to participate in the digital society, indeed. We collectively must end their wait.
The multistakeholder model allows people and organizations to bring the Internet to hard-to-reach communities.
It helps shape enabling policy environments that accelerate connectivity.
It makes high-quality open standards, open data, and open-source technology available to everyone.
And it enables us to learn from one another and identify solutions to some of the most stubborn and harmful digital challenges of our time.
Within the UN system, the Internet Governance Forum serves as the main venue for this work.
Open, non-binding, and inclusive by design, it helps all of us shape the Internet and digital policy for the betterment of society. Within the IGF stakeholders bridge the gap between high-level diplomacy and ground-level implementation, allowing local needs to shape global deliberations.
The Internet Society is a proud long-standing funder of not just the global IGF, but also more than 180 national, regional, sub-regional, and youth IGFs—as well as Internet Governance Schools worldwide. We do that to ensure that the future of Internet governance remains in steady, collaborative hands.
We should all be proud of what we have built together. I look forward to continuing our important work making sure that the future of the global Internet is written by those committed to making it a force for good for everyone, everywhere.
Thank you.