Session
Global Digital Justice Forum, Dynamic Coalition on Internet Rights and Principles, Digital Constitutionalism Network, Dynamic Coalition on Platform Responsibility
Anita Gurumurthy, Global Digital Justice Forum, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific; Nandini Chami, IT for Change, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific; Sadaf Wani, IT for Change, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific
Anita Gurumurthy, Global Digital Justice Forum, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Nandini Chami, IT for Change, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Sadaf Wani, IT for Change, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Yoke Ling, Third World Network, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Dennis Redeker, Dynamic Coalition on Internet Rights and Principles, Civil Society, Western Europe and North America
Anita Gurumurthy
Sadaf Wani
Nandini Chami
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
10. Reduced Inequalities
Targets: The event addresses the broad gamut of global digital cooperation. With tech policy playing an impactful role in determining the fulfillment of overarching development objectives such as innovation and infrastructure development, work and economic growth and reduced inequalities, the session and the discussions are well aligned with the above identified SDGs.
Roundtable
The event is structured as a visioning exercise, which will take place in three rounds that are detailed below. The onsite moderator will help facilitate the discussion in a plenary through discussion prompts that move through problem setting towards solutions development. Short context setting presentations from experts will be woven into the rounds to aid the visioning exercise. Round 1. A different multistakeholderism In round 1, the session will focus on the issues with the current model of multistakeholderism, and the ways in which multistakeholderism needs to be made anew towards the goal of accountable and effective digital governance. Illustrative issues the session will take on include: - Unpacking elite capture within multistakeholder spaces and solutions to counter the same - Evolving a new grammar of multistakeholderism that can expand the parameters and mechanisms of inclusion - Restructuring deliberative spaces for networked participatory governance - Determining the new frontiers of digital governance The session will bring on board contributions from actors deeply immersed in internet and digital governance spaces to share from their analogous experiences. Indicative speakers include representatives from the UN Tech Envoy's office, IGF MAG members, HLEC members from Net Mundial+10, ICANN community members and governments. Round 2. A new multilateralism: old truisms or radical change? In round 2, the session will go deeper into the challenges of present multilateralism and the solutions that are needed to address head on the system’s resource and capacity gaps, as well as the strategies that can be deployed to make it fit for purpose to take on global governance challenges. In particular, the session will explore in earnest how multilateralism can deliver on south-south cooperation among developing nations, as well as work to evolve policy regimes around the building blocks of the digital economy. Illustrative issues the session will take on include: - The realpolitik of development cooperation and how to shift finance flows - The role of democratic institutions in protecting people's sovereignty - Human rights constitutionalism for the digital everyday - The brass-tacks of multilateral coordination and inter-agency cooperation The session will bring perspectives about the ever increasing digital governance spaces. Indicative speakers include UN agency representatives like UNCTAD, ITU, UNESCO, UNDP, WHO, ILO, as well as intergovernmental organisations like South Centre, and policy centres like Global Policy Watch. Round 3. The vast open spaces of a multi-scalar solidarity The third session will open up thinking around how global digital governance agendas and processes can create more meaningful -channels of integration from the bottom-up to ensure that the concerns, voices and perspectives of marginalized communities and people find fair representation and inclusion. Illustrative issues the session will take on include: - New horizons for solidarity - South-South and North-South alliances and agendas - Digital governance non-negotiables for planetary peace, prosperity and sustainability - Alternative digital economy models and knowledge networks for an equitable future - Reclaiming the internet as a regenerative global common The session will include multi-sectoral and multi-constituency views and standpoints from transnational social movements, community technology activists, feminist digital justice advocates, platform cooperatives, UN Special Rapporteurs, governments, and regional inter-governmental organizations.
Digital cooperation faces several key challenges today. At the first level, there are the well-recognized power asymmetries among and across actors, whether that be within industry where smaller startups and companies struggle to compete against powerful Big Tech companies; in the relative influence of the private sector and civil society in the policy domain; or between corporate power, especially in the context of platform companies, and global south governments. Also at a crossroads is the multilateral system that seeks to renew its global function and legitimacy in the face of high resource paucity and growing extra-institutional agenda-setting by a handful of billionaires. Further, in a world of war and want, the voices, stakes and priorities of people and communities in the margins are a big missing link. Network-scale imaginaries of participatory governance to integrate regional and local-to-global levels of input and leverage people-to-people connections, collaborations, and alliances are lacking. This pre-event seeks to address these challenges for digital cooperation through three rounds of discussions that will bring experts from across a range of constituencies including civil society, the UN community, technologists, industry and government representatives as well as social movements and cooperatives. Speakers and participants will contemplate a future digital society and envision a) a new global democratic and development order b) the quantum change towards just digital governance.
A designated off-site moderator will be present through the session to enable online participation to flow smoothly and in equal measure. We will make efforts to organize a parallel online plenary for the visioning exercises to allow optimal participation should the need arise.