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By Audrey Hingle —

Four Responses on the Future of Internet Governance

Submitted as part of the WSIS+20 review process, which marks twenty years since the original World Summit on the Information Society.

Four Responses on the Future of Internet Governance
Photo by Patrick Perkins / Unsplash

By Avri Doria

Note from the Editor 

These four suggestions were submitted as part of the WSIS+20 review process, which marks twenty years since the original World Summit on the Information Society. That summit helped set global priorities around internet access, infrastructure, governance, and cooperation across sectors.

Now, in 2025, governments and stakeholders are assessing what progress has been made and what needs to happen next. The Elements Paper, released earlier this year, outlines the main themes and issues under consideration. It will help shape the Zero Draft, the first version of the outcome document to be negotiated ahead of the December UN General Assembly meeting.

This review is significant because it may influence the future of key institutions like the Internet Governance Forum, help align global digital governance with the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, and shape how multilateral and multistakeholder cooperation evolves in response to emerging technologies like AI and quantum systems.

The following remarks by Avri Doria, an independent contributor from the  technical community, were delivered during a multistakeholder consultation in July 2025. We are publishing them here with light edits for clarity and structure, and with the author’s voice preserved.

I want to offer four suggestions in response to the Elements Paper and the broader WSIS+20 review. Each reflects areas where I believe practical progress is both possible and necessary.

  1. Resolve the Enhanced Cooperation conundrum without the continuing disruption and confusion.
  2. Understand the global necessity for capacity building and the need to do something concrete about it.
  3. Continue to move toward greater and evolved use of internet based communications and hybrid modes for consultations, deliberations and meetings in general.
  4. Recall advice from the NETmundial+10 Multistakeholder Statement dedicated to multilateral processes in the light of the stakeholder realities: of the Internet, of pervasive surveillance and data, of AI, of quantum and other evolving technologies. 

I expand on those remarks below:

1. Resolve the Enhanced Cooperation conundrum without the continuing disruption and confusion. 

I want to highlight the ongoing attempts to enhance the cooperation between multilateral and multistakeholder processes, such as consultations like this one. Some of these initiatives are proving successful, and should be nurtured and expanded. This kind of practical collaboration is the Enhanced Cooperation that we need.

There are those who believe that Enhanced Cooperation is for UN member states and intergovernmental organizations only, as they need to control the public policy of internet and data governance. Others believe that multistakeholder models are all we need. Over the years, events have shown that Enhanced Cooperation is necessary and must involve all stakeholders. 

Not only did I have the honor of serving on the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) as a technical member of civil society—before the Technical Community was recognized as a stakeholder, and at a time when, as I recall, Enhanced Cooperation was not discussed—I also had the opportunity to be among those outside the room when this concept emerged at WSIS as a counter foil to an Internet governed and maintained by many diverse stakeholders guided by a set of ideas that fall under the rubric of multistakeholderism: that is, the study, implementation, and practice of multistakeholder models. I also had the honor of serving on the first Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (WGEC) at a time when I believed that the right multistakeholder model was all we needed. 

Time has shown me that we cannot eliminate the states and intergovernmental organizations, with their multilateral practices, from governance decision processes; not only are they human rights duty holders, they have the power to act on their own and in the end, we have to follow their laws. However, I am also still convinced that Internet Governance and governance of other technological emergents, such as data, AI, and quantum-based cryptography, cannot work without full multistakeholder participation and mechanisms. That is why I believe the two systems must find a way to work under the banner of Enhanced Cooperation.

There are frequent efforts to introduce actual cooperation between multilateral and multistakeholder processes. Some are informal, some formal. On the informal side, we see it all around. Participants from every stakeholder group interact: we eat together, we drink together, we party together, we become friends and some even wed. Over the years we have learned to cooperate and have strengthened this informal cooperation until it is sometimes difficult to tell where one stakeholder group starts and the other ends, until we take our seats and discuss our defined positions. Informally, enhanced cooperation exists and helps us work together.

Formal Enhanced Cooperation, starting with recommendations around the time of WSIS+10, has emerged as the two approaches begin to accommodate each other. Intergovernmental organizations are now paired with multistakeholder partners in a variety of ways. At one end of the spectrum, there is the example of the Freedom Online Coalition (FOC) and its multistakeholder Advisory Network (FOC-AN), where member states make decisions in closed discussion, while open discussions and a healthy exchange of opinion continue between them. At the other end of the spectrum, there is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the composite of a multistakeholder policy organization, a traditional non profit corporation, and a government body, which has a Bylaws-defined ability to pause the ICANN multistakeholder decision process and enter a complicated set of negotiations with the corporation’s Board of Directors. There are many other examples of multilateral and multistakeholder processes cooperating to get things done throughout technology governance, examples which we should consult and study moving forward. It can be done, we just have to increase our capacity to do so.

2. Understand the global necessity for capacity building and do something about it. 

As the Coordinator of the Dynamic Coalition on Schools of Internet Governance, I want to emphasize that this is an area where The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) does important work. Capacity building is the essential work carried out by IGF Policy Networks and by Dynamic Coalitions, among others. This needs to be recognized, coordinated, and supported. 

Almost every document that touches on a development or a governance theme has calls for capacity building. We need to take advantage of the many people and resources already engaged in it, or capable of contributing, and organize them to cover the issues and populations more effectively. Financial support is necessary to make concrete progress on capacity building.

3. Move toward greater use of internet-based communications and hybrid modes for consultations, deliberations and meetings in general.  

As a participant in the technical community for over three decades, I want to argue that in order to become more inclusive and development oriented, more of the world’s people need to have the means to participate in their own governance. While we still need to close connectivity gaps, we also need to move beyond connectivity for those who are already connected: to being able to use it for access to, and participation in, all forms of internet and digital governance. We cannot all travel to meetings. We cannot all fit into any of the venues or cities. Only the Internet can accommodate us all. I appreciate its use on this occasion.

While all of the world's people are not yet online, more and more of them are. Bringing inclusion into the ongoing discussions in all of the areas of the Sustainable Development Goals and governance needs to scale to the ever-growing outreach we claim as our goal. We need to use the Internet, not only as an auxiliary in bad times of disease or disaster, but as a fundamental part of our practice.

4. Recall advice from the NETmundial+10 Multistakeholder Statement dedicated to multilateral processes in the light of the stakeholder realities: of the Internet, of pervasive surveillance and data collection, of AI, of quantum and other evolving technologies.

This current reality with regard to Enhanced Cooperation was a subtheme discussed extensively last year at NETMondial+10, a multistakeholder event that included member states, intergovernmental organizations, and other stakeholders. They produced a set of guidelines, The Sao Paulo Guidelines, for multilateral inclusive multistakeholder practice that I recommend as a base document for any effort going forward. 

Given that, I think it is critical to recall the section in the NETmundial+10 Multistakeholder Statement focused on the multilateral processes in the light of multistakeholder realities: of the Internet, of pervasive surveillance and data collection, of AI, and of other evolving technologies. I also think it important to keep this advice in mind as we continue down the de facto path of Enhanced Cooperation we find ourselves on.

Multilateral processes need to become more inclusive to ensure the meaningful participation of all stakeholders, especially from the Global South. Incorporating diverse voices and multiple worldviews by involving broader stakeholder input can enhance multilateral processes. Better decisions can be achieved and better delivery of outcomes assured through inclusive processes for adequate deliberation and consensus-building, based on the guidelines and process steps described below.

To achieve these gains, all stakeholders should be empowered to contribute in a meaningful way to all stages of a process tackling issues of concern. The appointment of advisory/expert roles and/or platforms adequately resourced should be encouraged, to effectively facilitate and analyze diverse contributions from the agenda-setting phase, during deliberations, and on draft resolutions and texts, following agreed guidelines and timeframes and incorporating ethical and public interest considerations. Similarly, significant investments in capacity-building and education to strengthen each step of the process are vital to achieve effective contributions. It is important that such investments account for the relative power differences between and within different stakeholders and stakeholder groups.

In the spirit of the multistakeholder principles, multilateral processes should evolve. They must share the scope of their work and publish a commitment regarding transparency of the process, including but not limited to a timeline highlighting critical opportunities for participation. As part of that commitment, a regular schedule to inform about their progress – or lack thereof – must be made available, including public access to specific outputs. Documentation of how contributions were made, evaluated and incorporated into the process is as important as the documentation related to dissenting and divergent views. Such mechanisms must follow accessibility standards and provide effective alternatives to facilitate participation in languages other than English.

Robust accountability mechanisms should be part of all multilateral processes, so that there are clear steps and deadlines for the implementation of recommendations. Concrete mechanisms for reflection about the impact of their decisions and the status of implementation of their recommendations are key for continuity. Efforts to accurately document each multilateral process should be made, including concrete steps to identify linkages with other similar processes.

It is, therefore, essential to foster a safe, trustworthy and fair environment where imbalances between participants are addressed, and civil society, the private sector, academia and the technical community are able to meaningfully participate in multilateral processes. Governments have a key responsibility to guarantee the conditions for securing diversity and achieving robust multilateral processes.

As the UN-based and other intergovernmental processes and institutions move toward recommendations for the UN General Assembly to vote on, I ask the member states in the UN discussions to please incorporate this advice into your work going forward.

With my thanks for the way the consultation was held; with the flexibility and patience that allowed all who wanted to participate to do so.

Mallory at Jakarta Futures Forum: “Securing Seas, Strengthening Cooperation”

IX's Mallory Knodel will be speaking next week at Jakarta Futures Forum: “Securing Seas, Strengthening Cooperation”, a global conference co-hosted by India’s Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and Indonesia’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on 5–6 August 2025. The forum brings together leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector to explore regional cooperation, digital transformation, and inclusive development across the Indo-Pacific.

Learn More & Register

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