2025 will mark 20 years since the inception of the World Summit on the Information Society. In the context of the WSIS+20 review, this side event asks the question, How do we ensure a human-rights-centred digital future as we look to the next 10 years of the information society?
Rationale
The WSIS+20 review is poised to redefine the future of the Internet and digital cooperation. As technological frontiers expand from Web 4.0 to advanced AI, the international community faces a dual challenge: supporting innovation and ensuring an open, free, global, safe, secure, inclusive, human-centric, and human-rights based digital future. The EU's value-based digital model, which combines innovation with regulation, is a blueprint for this global endeavour.
This side event aimed to bridge high-level strategy with actionable technical partnerships. By examining various approaches to digital public infrastructure, connectivity, infrastructure and governance frameworks, the event facilitated a dialogue on how value-based digital cooperation can advance technological innovation while respecting human rights. The session positioned the EU as a trusted and forward-looking partner for both global policymaking and on-the-ground implementation. It convened high-level stakeholders to explore how lessons from the EU and other regions can serve to build a future-proof Tech Offer encompassing digital public infrastructure, secure connectivity and green data centres. The conversation also aimed to link this offer to the broader WSIS agenda while promoting a vision for the future Internet that reconciles interoperability and the prevention of fragmentation, simultaneously reaffirming the commitment to human rights, inclusivity and multistakeholder cooperation.
Outcomes and Key Takeaways
The event demonstrated that operationalising value-based digital cooperation requires moving from high-level commitments to concrete, partnership-driven action. The EU's Tech Offer is a partnership model that goes beyond simply exporting technology to building local capacity and ensuring interoperability. There are many real-world examples, such as broadband expansion programmes in Nigeria, digital ID systems in Kenya, and Albania's e-Albania platform, which delivers 95 per cent of public services online. These initiatives show how collaborative digital partnerships translate into tangible benefits for citizens and sustainable development.
Another insight was the role of digital public infrastructure in accelerating the Sustainable Development Goals, with UNDP noting that 70 per cent of SDG targets can be advanced through responsible, open-source digital solutions. Speakers highlighted innovative approaches, such as GovStack initiatives for reusable digital platforms and open-source programme offices in governments,
which adapt global digital public goods to local contexts. The discussion underscored that success in digital transformation depends on meaningful multistakeholder collaboration that brings together government, the UN system, the private sector, technical communities and civil society to ensure no one is left behind.
The outcome document of 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 is adopted by consensus on 17 December 2025, and is available here.
This event is part of the Global initiative on the future of the internet, a project funded by the European Union under the service contract no. NDICI/2023/447-807.