Monday, 27 October 2025
Provided by Israel Rosas, Director, Partnerships and Internet Development, Internet Society

Excellencies,

Thank you and DESA for the openness you have shown as the WSIS+20 process keeps progressing.

As mentioned on previous occasions, we have commended the Zero Draft as a good start for the negotiations, as it reflects much of what you have heard from the community. But we’d also like to note that it needs sharpening to achieve an impactful outcome.

With only a few weeks away from the High-Level Meeting, we recognize the complexity of bridging positions at this stage. Although our proposals aim to lighten that burden, they can only be effective if the process stays as transparent as possible. Regular, public updates on the text will let us mobilize expertise and offer ideas to bridge differences at the speed you need.

In that spirit, here we respectfully present four priorities to keep in mind:

• One: Keep the WSIS vision as the compass. Reaffirm the WSIS vision and the Geneva and Tunis outcomes as the backbone for the WSIS+20 review, following the WSIS+10 approach. That continuity anchors the review in consensus principles and solid grounds that already work.
• Two: Build on what works; scale and adapt. The WSIS Action Lines remain the right map. Prioritize open, multistakeholder, and interoperable implementation methods across UN tracks, including the Global Digital Compact, under a unified, people-centered roadmap. Ambition comes from scaling impact, not multiplying processes.
• Three: Strengthen the IGF ecosystem the best way possible. For a permanent mandate to be meaningful, the WSIS+20 review needs to set a clear pathway for sustainable, long-term financing, rather than deferring the question for later consideration.
• Four: Name the enabling conditions. List the levers that all stakeholders can pull now to support meaningful connectivity and an open, globally connected, secure, and trustworthy Internet, such as measures to foster investment, innovation, and technological development, including community-centered connectivity initiatives.

Across all of them, keep the multistakeholder model front and center. Keep consulting closely with non-governmental stakeholders as the text evolves. No stakeholder can deliver this agenda alone, and without meaningful collaboration, we will miss opportunities to succeed. With timely visibility, we can bring targeted language and evidence that narrows gaps fast.