IGF 2024- Day 1- Plenary- HL 4 From Summit of the Future to WSIS+ 20 -- RAW

The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

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>>This is focusing on the UN which is in a sense a multistakeholder institution because it has a lot of actors involved.  So I would like to for the second part to ask to come to the floor Mr. Tawfik Jelassi Assistant Director General for communication and information of UNESCO and Robert Opp, Chief Digital Officer of UNDP, Mr. Policy coordinator at the ITU.  Mr. Mike Walter, head of digital service of the UNHCR and Mr. Angel Gonzalez, officer in charge Division of Technology and Logistics of UNCTAD.

>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: We are missing Tawfik Jelassi from UNESCO.  Angel Gonzalez is connected online.  Okay.  Let's give him a chance to come in and use in the meantime    he is walking in.  Excellent!.  This is such a big venue that sometimes it takes time to get from A to B, but he is coming.

While he is taking his seat let me introduce to you Ms. Doreen Bogdan Martin, Secretary General of the ITU to give introductory remarks to all of us.  Welcome, Doreen.  Thank you.

>> DOREEN BOGDAN-MARTIN: Thank you so much bass door Thomas Schneider, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, good evening, it's great to be here with all of you to share some thoughts as you kick off this session.  I think, ladies and gentlemen, we are standing together today at the cusp of the next chapter of the inclusive digital future, and we are doing so at a time when technology often feels like it's always one step or more ahead of us.

Two decades ago, the world convened to declare a common desire and a commitment to build a people centred inclusive and development oriented information society where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge and wild the WSIS framework has helped to make great strides toward this goal I think now is the time that we have to pause, although I hate to say the word pause, because we don't want to stop, but it's the moment for us to reflect and take stock of our progress to review the current state of the world and the technology around us and to double down on our commitment towards an equitable and sustainable digital future.

The WSIS has presented us with a powerful example of digital cooperation in action withstanding the test of time by building adaptable, and Thomas, as you said when I was walking in agile, if I can say that, adaptable, agile governance processes that can keep pace with the opportunities and the challenges of emerging technologies.  We need to continue to build on this momentum, and today we have the adoption of the Global Digital Compact, and that is an important milestone in the journey to next year's WSIS+20 review.

I want to leave you quickly with perhaps three thoughts as we drive forward our shared ambition.  So the first is to think about connectivity in terms of universal meaningful connectivity because how can we achieve the vision of WSIS if a third of humanity and countless others that we, a third of humanity being unconnected and countless others that are underconnected, as we see it not part of today's digital experience.

Second, we have to invest in trust and security.  The next phase of WSIS must play a critical role in ensuring that AI and other emerging technologies are developed responsibly and inclusively.  At stake is an accessible development agenda or 17 SDG's and our progress towards achieving those 17 goals and third, last but not least, making, building our multistakeholder digital future a top priority.

We have to do that, ladies and gentlemen, with the shared commitment for a safe and inclusive and a sustainable digital ecosystem.

Rest assured that you can count on the ITU to accompany you every way, every step of this process.

I think it's fair to say that we are in a race against time, the future of digital has not yet been written.  But let's remember who we are, where we came from, and what we can achieve when we work together.

So let's write that next chapter of our shared digital future together.  With that, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for the opportunity and Thomas, Ambassador, Chair, back to you.  Thank you.

>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you, Secretary General.

Over to the panel I think we can use question one and two, put them together so that I think that makes sense, and it's not surprisingly the questions are not that different from what we have heard.  Basically the clients, your customers of the UN bodies speak so it's good to see how you see these things.  So question one is also what have been the achievements in your, from your point of view of the WSIS process in the last 20 years?  How has the WSIS impacted the work of the UN of your institutions and then you may also, I encourage you to talk about looking forward, what are the most critical priorities for your organisations from your point of view for the next phase of WSIS.

So let me start with Tawfik Jelassi, I would like to hear from you.

>> TAWFIK JELASSI: Thank you very much, Thomas.

Good afternoon to all of you.  Let me share with you the perspective from UNESCO.  Twenty years ago WSIS came up with a visionary framework to bridge the global digital divide, to increase accessibility to the Internet, and to harness the potential of information and communication technologies obviously for social economic development.

It did not foresee the rise of digital platforms.  It did not foresee the rise of AI and GenerativeAI.  But, again, we had the vision and we had a framework.  This was approved at the Tunis edition of WSIS building on the Geneva Summit that happened two years earlier, 2003, Tunis being in 2005, and it set up a number of objectives and action lines to be implemented at both the national and international levels.

So your question what have we accomplished since then?

I think WSIS 2005 created the momentum at a global stage.  It was a call for collective action and also it created the political will among participants and, again, the participants were very much multistakeholder to make the concept of an Information Society become a reality.

So there were some key principles and guidance that came out of the Tunis Summit with this long term goal how can we all benefit from the digital age.

Today we can say that some of these objectives were achieved, but many others were not, or not fully achieved.  Is the Information Society today is a reality worldwide?  No.  When we see that one third of the world's population is still offline, not even connected to the Internet.  Today this morning we heard more about the rise of the knowledge based society.  Here we talk only quote, unquote, about the information based society.

So the world around us has changed.  The question is have we changed?  very changed enough in the face of these global changes.

So I want to give maybe a balanced response to your question, Thomas.  Major achievements were made for sure including through collective efforts, but, again, I think as ITU Secretary General just mentioned, there is still a lot of work ahead of us and there are new challenges that came to the fore including when the information ecosystem moved to digital, good news because it democratized access to information, but with that came miss/dis information, shat speech, discrimination, racism and harmful online content.  What are we doing or what have we been doing to combat that?  When we see that the rise of digital influencers in addition to digital content creators, when we see some of these youngsters called digital influencers each having 50, 6 billion followers online, more than all of the UN organisations combined, are these professional journalists?  They are not.

Do they check the content before posting online, they don't.  In 62ers of cases they don't check the content before they post it online.  I think these are new challenges we face.

It's a whole new world.  Obviously we don't want the Internet to become the online wild west.  We want some global governance of the Internet.  We want to ensure as, again, Doreen said, a safe, secure, open, accessible Internet to all.  Multi  lang wall, we are in Saudi Arabia, they represent half a billion people.  How much content is Arabic online, 3% only, and there are so many communities including indigenous communities who have no content online whatsoever.

So is that an Information Society?  It cannot be an Information Society.  So just to say that a lot has been achieved and we are delighted, but, again, this user generated content and the explosion of that diversity of cultural expressions online, digital influence there are many other issues that we need to not only make note of, but you have to actively find solutions while respecting human rights and the openness accessibility and the multistakeholder.

>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you very much, Angelie.

>> Thank you, Ambassador, and it's a great pleasure to be with you, Dr. Tawfik Jelassi, Rob, Mike, as the Secretary General mentioned in the opening remarks, WSIS was truly a revolutionary UN Summit.  It marked an era which was Steve in governance.  It built a passionate community of stakeholders worldwide who wanted to make a difference on the ground bringing the benefits of digital to the people.  It was about the people, about bringing the benefits of technology to the people on the ground.

And to create a trusted, connected world, to look at the gender digital divide.  To look at the intergenerational divide, the economic and social benefits that technology, information and communication technologies could bring to the ground at that time.

So looking back the three main achievements that stand out for us as ITU is, first, we focused on people, not just the technology ensuring that everyone everywhere gets the benefit of the digital progress.

Second, we have made the framework extremely collaborative, inclusive through our mulled efforts.  We have made    multistakeholder efforts we have made sure that all reflect the digital world's diversity and complexity at the same time.

The third we build this adaptable governance processes, you know, so that they can keep pace with the opportunities and challenges that keep emerging with the development of technologies.  For instance, look at the WSIS action lines.  They have given stakeholders a clear framework to tackle evolving digital challenges from infrastructure to ethics to capacity building to cybersecurity including to the really important things that UNESCO is looking at, for example, the indigenous languages, culture, media, really a diverse range, a Guam mitt of ICTs that cover.  They have a framework that adapts to the ever changing technology and innovation.

We also want to give a special recognition to two very key outcomes of WSIS, and the two complementary processes, the Internet Governance Forum and the WSIS forum.  That have really given action and a grass roots digital development and movement that WSIS is all about.  As for the impact of WSIS on UN's work, it's important to mention the role that digital now plays in advancing the SDG's, the international goals and in 2015 UNESCO, ITU, WHO, ILO, FAO, all UN agencies, UNDP involved in the WSIS process, we mapped the WSIS action lines with the SDG's, clearly showing a rationale as to how the action lines can implement and can help accelerate the achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals.

There by showing clearly how technology can impact and have an important impact on sustainable development.  So we've seen the world go from one billion Internet users in 2005 to 5.5 billion today as Dr. Tawfik Jelassi mentioned, from dial ups to 5G networks, from fragmented efforts to multistakeholder collaboration and action, and two decades on WSIS has stood the test of time as a powerful framework for inclusive digital cooperation.

Thank you, Ambassador, back to you.

>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you.  Angel Gonzalez.

>> ANGEL GONZALEZ: Thank you very much Ambassador for the introduction and the organizers for giving them the possibility to participate in this discussion.  It's going to be very difficult for me to highlight different achievements of the WSIS process from the ones that have already been identified by my distinguished predecessors.  As has been said, many of the aspirations of the WSIS 20 years ago have been not just fulfilled but probably exceeded in the expectations, for one thing, for example, in terms of the pervasive presence of information and threlings technologies in everyday life for many, many billions around the planet, and how access to the Internet and access to different forms of ICTs have improved productivity in the economy, but also improved the access to public services, to education, to health, how UN crisis of the pandemic enabled some form of social activity to continue in many context.

At the same time, it has to be said that many other aspects of the vision of WSIS remain only partially fulfilled or not fulfilled.  For example, it has been raised the question of the digital divide is not only a matter of having more and more people connected.  It's a matter of giving people meaningful connectivity, connectivity that enables them to actually participate as full members of society and exercise the right to radical participation to gain access to reliable information, to engage meaningfully as citizens.

There are divides in effect people along different lines, gender is an important one and we still have very serious gender digital divide, rural versus urban is another one, and even education are translating to different kinds of experiences when connected to the Internet.

We also see many developments in the area of ICTs that are completely or were completely out of the radar at the time when WSIS was conceived.  It would have been difficult, for example, to imagine 20 years ago that some of the biggest Private Sector investment would be, the private sector biggest multi  national companies would be built around digital service provision, in particular around data.

So in terms of how all of these changes have affected our work, I think it has already been said that the WSIS process has been fundamental in highlighting that there cannot be development without a development oriented perspective in the world of information connectivity and ICTs.  The work that was done by the WSIS actors to map the SDG's to different action lines I think was very important in that sense, and I think it would be impossible for any of us UN agencies to really carry out our work today, our development work without keeping this intimate connection between utilization and development present in all of our activities.  The WSIS+20 review in which we are now engaged., and with colleagues from ITU UNESCO and others highlight the intimate connection between development and the WSIS in discussing it has already been mentioned the crucial role of multistakeholder participation in all of these processes, and I would like to again like Angeli said highlight the role of the IGF but also the WSIS forum in helping identify developments in technology and development in the interface between the two of them which are essential for any successful development.

I think I will stop here and I would again just want to close with a reminder of the importance of the WSIS+20 review in the sense of identifying through a multistakeholder approach the strategic lines in which the WSIS process can advance and the convergence between development policy and ICT policy.  Thank you.

>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you very much.  Robert Opp Robert Opp thanks very much.  I don't want to repeat what colleagues have said so if it's okay I would like to make another observation, and some of it might be a bit provocative, but if I reflect on where we have come in the last several years, now, there is 20 years since WSIS, but the last several years have seen acceleration of digitization largely I would say as a result of the pandemic.  And so there have been three big shifts from the development perspective at the country level that we've noticed.  One is a shift from thinking of digital and ICTs as solutions and thinking of it more as ecosystems.

So thinking really the interconnectedness, the interoperability across entire societies.  Second big shift is going from a very fragmented state to a very much more holistic understanding of digital transformation.  So it's not digital transformation only in separate sectors or ministries, but rather a whole of society.  And the third big shift is from what I would call techno optimism to an understanding of the fundamental issues around rights and inclusiveness that technology brings risks with it.

And now I'm speaking from the perspective of development practitioners which when I say Techno optimist because when you look back at the WSIS and you look back at the vision and the fundamental principles that were established, they were actually very visionary in that sense, and the basic framework is still valid despite these seismic shifts in digitalization and ICTs.

And so I think the WSIS framework that includes IGF and so on    included IGF and so on gives us the platform to continue those discussions and has adapted accordingly.  I think what we are starting to see in addition is a broader interest in these mechanisms because the space of digitalization, the topic of digitization has become so much more prominent.

And although I would agree that there was work that was done as part of the SDG's and Agenda 2030, the fact is that a lot of the issues we are discussing today, were still absent in 2015.  It was almost as though it was a kind of a niche on the side, but when it comes to the successor discussion around what's going to come after the SDG's, the current Agenda 2030, I don't think there is any question that areas of digitization will be at the centre.  So I think the world is shifting.  I think that WSIS and IGF have also been accommodating that because the fundamental framework is solid.  And I think that we do need to look at the future, at what is coming next and how do we continue to evolve and strengthen and broaden what we have established and what has been working for the last 20 years.

>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you very much Robert, Mike Walter.

>> MIKE WALTER: I would agree with you, Rob, it was visionary, and I look at the basis of what was in the original principles and I think apply that to UNHR's digital strategy and a lot of it still rings true.  So digital inclusion is primary for refugees and forcibly displaced.  And now this wouldn't have happened 20 years ago, but now    it wouldn't have happened 10 years ago, but we can see that people are accessing information, lifesaving information, information that helps them rebuild their lives.  Ten years ago we didn't have a help website for refugees.  Now 14 million refugees and forcibly displaced visit that every year.  That wouldn't have been possible, but it's thanks to the work of pushing this agenda that we actually managed to get this inclusion happening.  So just in terms of another opportunity when I went to Cacuma there was a group of refugees that were coding Android apps for revising learning for the local community.  They were able to did, they had a small generator, coding, equipment, and the impact was designed by the community and worked for the community.  That wouldn't have happened 20 years ago so thanks to all of this pushing that's just become a reality.  A couple of unsung heroes that are in the original document, knowledge and digital preservation which I know that UNESCO and others do a lot of work on, we have a huge amount of knowledge and stories and a fantastic archive team in UNHR that is trying to digitally preserve those conversations that happened, the documents that exist, the strategies that were written and that digitization of knowledge and sharing of knowledge is so critical to actually become useful in the future.  So let's really push forward with that.  And with accessibility we wouldn't have had auto Captioning 20 years ago, digital accessibility for those with disabilities is, has moved on, and people can access lots of assistive technologies and lots of different pieces.  We are not completely there yet, but it has come on leaps and bounds so just to flag those two parts of the original WSIS principles that aren't talked about enough.

But I have made it sound really Rosey, but there are still huge gaps.  We have talked about the difference in gaps between people who have access and people who don't.  And, yes, more refugees do have access, but we are changing the landscape.  The information landscape has changed.  It's far more risky.  It's far more ability for fraud, for risk of trafficking, for toxic narratives to exist online.  How do we make sure, this is the next looking at the priorities question, how do we really make sure we focus on those increased risks and we can tackle those risks going forward?

In terms of the importance of multistakeholder approach I will just give a couple of examples there, and this is why it's so important to keep convening, is that we have had two examples with the global compact on refugees which have been invaluable to move forward multistakeholder agenda.  One is on misinformation and information integrity, which is really about having trusted information out there that people can go to, and they know what trusted content is, and we have had fantastic support from the Norwegians, the Swiss, Google and Meta supporting this fledge.

So thanks to them for that multistakeholder approach, and on connectivity with the work that ITU has done have been fantastic in terms of pushing with us on the joint approach to connectivity glvment.

So without all of the joint working without the dialogue happening we wouldn't have been able to achieve and get where we are, but focus on these new things that have come since the initial principles.

>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you.  So looking forward, what are the most critical priorities?  Very briefly, Tawfik Jelassi.

>> TAWFIK JELASSI: That's a good question, Thomas.  What are the most critical priorities for the next phase of WSIS?  I think that today we are in this digital information ecosystem, and I think we should really maybe look more deeply into the supply and demand of information in that digital ecosystem.

When I mentioned in my first intervention the exponential dissemination of harmful online content, that's obviously from a supply perspective of information.

We have, as I mentioned, one initiative of UNESCO, the guidelines of UNESCO for the governance of digital platforms which were published a year ago and you are moving into the pilot implementation of that.  But then we have to look also at the demand side of information at the usage side of information.

When our studies show that on average a youngster spends six hours a day connected to this digital platforms, more than doing homework or anything else, what information do they come across?

Is that fact checked information or is that misleading and even harmful information?  When we see, again, the usage side, what can we do about that?  One initiative by UNESCO is to make the users become media and information literate, and we have developed curricula, we have developed content on media and information literacy as countries have taught foreign languages in the 60's and 70's, the language of the youngsters today is digital.

Have we prepared them to that?  Have we developed a critical mind set among users of the digital platforms so they can hopefully distinguish between the fact checked information and the fake or deep fake information, but also at least to check the source of information before they like and share and become themselves amplifiers of mis and disinformation.

So I think that's something we need to ac will.  This is a priority as I see it.  And inclusivity includes gender equality online.  We know today that women are less connected and significantly less connected than men to the Internet.  But also the presence of women in digital technologies including AI.  We know that they represent 10% to 15% of the workforce depending on what digital look at.  A third is the environment, to what extent can WSIS contribute to tackling the issues of climate change and the environmental crisis.  That's, I think, something very important nowadays.

But also there is another priority which is the next phase of WSIS today that we have a Global Digital Compact.  WSIS was a UN event adopted by heads of state around the world, but so is the Global Digital Compact.

How can the two UN processes hopefully complement each other or work in some symbiosis with each other without duplication, without dilution of effort in this regard.

And when we talk about AI also and the either emerging technologies like GenerativeAI, the issue of the global data governance, I think, which we did not have maybe to the same extent and with that it's not only how to bridge the digital divide, how to bridge the digital skills divide.  This morning we saw the Saudi Minister showing us the huge number of digital jobs not fulfilled today because we do lack digital skills and competencies for a number of these digital tasks and activities.  So I think we should pay more attention to capacity building, capacity development in digital.

And finally, let's say if we look at specific sectors like education, we know to what extent GenerativeAI is transforming education, transforming teaching, transforming learning, transforming assessing student skills and competencies.  I think we are in an era where we cannot just reform education or incrementally improve on it.  GenerativeAI disruptive technology that calls for radical rethink and transformation of education to have the proper learning value that we can deliver not only to pupils and students but we talked today about lifelong learning even to professionals along their active career.

So, again, this is what I see as a first set of priorities to consider.

>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you very much.

>>  Thank you, Ambassador Snyder, my priorities are quite similar to what Dr. Tawfik Jelassi mentioned so I will try to bring in the collective efforts that we are making towards WSIS+20 and where all stakeholders can contribute.  So, of course, one of our main priorities which, again, I like to highlight is bridge the digital divides.  (Angelie) we can no longer accept that 38% of the population in Africa, only 38% uses the Internet.  The gender disparities at least in least developing countries are expanding.  The biases in AI, you know, and the algorithm biases that are existing in AI are also to be looked at.

The 1.8 billion of the 2.6 billion offline live in rural areas.  So these are the divides we really need to focus on.  And what we are doing as collective as a UN, as the UN for the WSIS+20 is we have started our preparatory process, UNESCO, ITU, UNCTAD through CSTD, UNDP, and the Regional Commissions, we've been looking at how the regional WSIS+20 processes and our main events like the upcoming UNESCO Conference in July, the IGF in June, the WSIS+20 high level event in Geneva in July, 7th to 11th of July, the CSTD in April.  How can these upcoming milestones play an important part in multistakeholder contributions towards the WSIS+20 review.  So we have the GDC which, of course, was a milestone towards the WSIS+20 review.

How can we make the upcoming events more impactful contributing towards the WSIS+20 review.  Now, all of us are aware that two co facilitators will be appointed for the WSIS+20 review, and we are hoping that this is done as soon as possible so that the modalities, resolutions could be worked on, and that we could move on with the WSIS+20 review process and ensure that the vision of WSIS beyond 2025 is as strong and as multistakeholder as it was in 2000, even in 2015 where we looked at the, at the emerging trends and opportunities and challenges of each action lines as the UN and as multistakeholders.

So, of course, the GDC has set an ambitious vision for us.  We must get together and see how we can incorporate the milestone into the WSIS+20 review process and looking at 9 IGF, how we could strengthen it, we all support the IGF, we love it.  A lot of concrete multistakeholder outcomes come out of it.

The Swiss Chair's summary at the WSIS+20 forum high level event this year in 2024, those of you who haven't read it, you must really go and read it because it has all of these components in it.  The WSIS plus the important role that the WSIS forum plays of how we can align the WSIS and the GDC.  So there is a lot of work going on around all of this, and we should see how we can put all of it together.

Now, once the GDC was adopted, also the UN has been in action.  We have developed an Action Plan where we have mapped the WSIS action lines with the 2030 Agenda, and the GDC principles.  Clearly highlighting the frameworks and the institutions and activities that exist to implement the GDC.  So this exists.

At the ITU with the UN agencies in Geneva, we also have this Geneva UN digital kitchen where we are meeting quite often to come up with the Geneva Action Plan on what we could do together as the UN to contribute to the GDC process.

And as the ITU our Member States have also asked us to come up with an ITU Action Plan to implement the GDC, and present it to our next Council Working Group on WSIS and SDG's.  So there is a lot of work going on and there is good momentum.  We should feed this all into the WSIS+20 review process to ensure that we have a bright vision and future for multi stakeholderism and the WSIS process beyond 2025.

>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Yes, thank you.  Robert, please.

>> ROBERT OPP: All right.  A lot has been said already.  Topic was super comprehensive.  Let me emphasize a couple that were mentioned and mention a couple that weren't.  Environmental sustainability has to go into the next version of what we do.  And it's the two areas.  It's what digitization can contribute to environmental sustainability, climate change, but it's also the contribution to climate challenges or environmental challenges.  E waste is a huge problem.  Carbon emissions are a huge problem and with the advent of AI and Gen AI it's going to get worse.  I know there is technology that is also becoming more efficient, but we have to be cognizant of the balance.

I think it was a recent report from our colleagues at UNCTAD actually that were, one of the figures that stuck in my mind was that data centers a couple of years ago were emitting the same carbon emissions as France, and that is going to grow.  So we have to as a UN system responsible when we actually look at these issues.  And proliferate technology.

I think capacity building, no question, for us we see that as probably the number one gap when we work at country level, requests come to us for more capacity, more skills, stronger ecosystems, et cetera.

Then I would mention digital public infrastructure is something that has emerged in the last several years.  It is something that is now in the Global Digital Compact and I think we need to consider what it looks like in the context of WSIS as well because it is something that we think has a lot of promise for accelerating digital transformation at the country level.

The last one I can't remember, so I will stop there.

>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you very much.  Mike.

>> MIKE WALTER: Another good segue from Rob there, agree, information integrity I think we are all agreed in terms of those priorities.  We haven't talked ethics more broadly and the ethical use of technology and do no harm in the products we use and produce is important.  We are about work on a refugee gateway which will be an access point for refugees, how do we ensure we deliver that in an ethical way?  How do other suppliers ensure they are creating technology solutions that take into account ethical principles that are there.  So I would say let's broaden out climate change absolutely.  That has a how many impact on refugees, but what are the other ethical principles we should focus on as part of our prioritization and how could we build out joint framework for how we agree on how that can be applied to new solutions.

>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you.

>> ANGEL GONZALEZ: It's very difficult to say anything different from what has already been said.  I would just join my voice to those that mentioned the environment not just because we published a report on this issue, but also because it's really a big concern and it's going to become a bigger concern and we need to take action quickly on both the environmental burden of digital technologies but also on using better the potential of digital technologies to address environmental issues.

The second point that perhaps I would like to emphasize is that we need to work together to address the risks that the utilization can bring about in terms of increasing equality.  Increasing equality among men and women, increasing equality between countries, between different social groups but also increasing equality across countries.

And one particular problem or area of concern in that regard could be the intimately linked questions of data governance and Internet Governance.  We are just now finishing a survey of the major Artificial Intelligence governance that exist in the world, seven of them, and we found that there are 118 countries not involved in any of them whereas only the G7 member countries are involved in all of them.  The risk that the voice, the Conference of the developing countries will be completely ignored in these discussions is very serious and really we need to do much, much more effort in becoming inclusive in developing responses to the challenges created for developing countries.

The same can be said about data governance and data is after all the fuel on which artificial intelligence models are driven.  So we need to also come up with much more inclusive ways to develop principles for data governance, the CSTD is now tasked by the global GDC to set up a multistakeholder Working Group on data governance that will report the end of 2026, and this is, in my opinion, and in UNCTAD's opinion a major challenge that we need to address through, again, deep multistakeholder engagement including in particular the voices from the Global South.  Thank you very much.

>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you, angel, and, yes, we have one minute lefts.

I would take that one minute from each trying to wrap up with what we have heard.  I think actually we all agree that a lot has been achieved but there is much more work to do, and time doesn't stand still.  So with every task that we have accomplished, we get two, three more tasks in the future which is a challenge for all of us.  And I think we will have ample time to discuss and what was already said how to align, how to bring together the GDC and the WSIS process into one based on the 20 years of work that has been done so far.  And I'm looking very much forward to, yes, continuing the discussion in various combinations and in various sessions this week, but also in Geneva, in Paris, wherever this is going to be.  Thank you very much, and enjoy the nice evening here, and this is the end of today as far as I know, at least of the official part.  So thank you very much and see you tomorrow, I guess.  Thank you very much.

(Applause).