From 6 to 9 July, the APC network actively engaged in the 2026 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum, a global convening coordinated by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) with UNESCO, UNDP, and UNCTAD and in partnership with over 50 UN entities. The Forum, which has as its mandate the advancement of the WSIS Action Lines, is a diverse multistakeholder space that brings together “governments, the private sector, civil society, technical communities, academia, youth, and international organisations.”
Hosted in Geneva, Switzerland, the Forum explored both current innovations and emerging risks in support of global digital cooperation. This year, the WSIS Forum happened alongside the first ever Global Dialogue on AI Governance (6 and 7 July) and the AI for Good Global Summit (7–10 July).
APC focused our contributions on several key priority areas central to our global governance advocacy. These included enabling regulation and financing for community-centred connectivity initiatives, exploring innovative and suitable financing mechanisms, increasing corporate accountability through human rights-oriented regulation, centring human rights in the WSIS process and AI governance, and mainstreaming environmental sustainability. Making decision-making and governance processes more inclusive, alongside reviewing practices that impose decisions on impacted communities without involving them, was another key highlight.
In addition, mainstreaming gender in policy and governance spaces and processes was a key message underlying APC’s engagement. “Gender mainstreaming must be embedded consistently across all digital governance processes, not treated as a standalone issue,” noted Pavitra Ramanujam, APC’s social and environmental justice programme manager during a session on “Measuring what matters: Embedding gender equality in AI governance through gender-specific indicators.” Offering concrete recommendations for the next steps, the Gender in Digital Coalition, of which APC is a part, presented feminist guiding principles and commitments to drive AI governance.
Connectivity and digital inclusion in the WSIS agenda
With the aim of promoting access to connectivity as a right, community agency was highlighted in this edition of WSIS. This agenda was transversal to the spaces in which APC members and partners advocating for the digital inclusion of communities were involved. Its main focus was strengthening local initiatives, the fundamental priority of capacity building and the urgent need for financing. “Meaningful connectivity requires more than infrastructure. It depends on community ownership, public investment and enabling policies,” summarised Valeria Betancourt, APC’s internet governance lead.
To avoid bringing further harm, particularly to marginalised communities who are at greatest risk, it is imperative that we continue to advocate for a rights-based approach in policies.
“Digital governance discussions must centre human rights, gender justice and the needs of communities most affected by digital inequalities,” affirmed Betancourt.
“Access, Agency, Voice” was a session hosted by APC partner WACC, devoted to challenging the idea of a linear technological future and instead exploring how communities in the Global South are shaping an alternate digital world. The panel highlighted that there is not just one way to connect people all around the world. “Communities can tailor technologies to be meaningful, useful, accessible, pertinent for their environmental concerns, for the ways of life they practice, for the political organisations they have. The solution is not the same for everyone,” underlined Carlos Baca from REDES A.C., Rhizomatica in Mexico and the Local Networks initiative.
In the same thread Anriette Esterhuysen, APC’s senior advisor on global and regional internet governance, agreed that connectivity is a precondition for digital inclusion. “We still are undercounting and underestimating how big the gap is,” she noted.
The session “Digital inclusion in an unequal world” brought together a group of speakers including APC member Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC). The session called for a “responsibilities-based approach by governments, the private sector, civil society and individuals to balance the existing rights-based focus, thereby ensuring that the poorest and most marginalised may indeed benefit from the use of digital tech, rather than merely being exploited and surveilled through it.”
Sustainable financing for community-centred initiatives
APC, together with the Swiss Federal Office of Communication, hosted a session on “Sustainable financing for digital development” with the aim of building evidence and sharing experiences on mobilising domestic public resources and community-led partnerships. Derived from experiences from the ITU and APC in financing infrastructure and community-centred connectivity, the session addressed the idea of building a “help desk” for governments and stakeholders, particularly in developing countries, for relevant financial mechanisms, technical assistance and capacity development support. The session involved members of the newly established UNGIS Task Force on Financing Digital Development, mandated by the WSIS+20 outcome document, in the context of clearly declining finance support and a notable gap between the available macro-financing models and the reality of communities.
The conversation went well beyond spreadsheets and funding mechanisms. Longtime APC partner David Souter opened by questioning the framing in three points. First, asking whether “the conversation is really about the development of society or the development of technology?” Second, defining what ought to be the starting point of discussions: “Should they start from establishing the key development with challenges that need to be addressed or from the potential of digital technologies to address them?” He furthermore clarified that “governments in the Global South focus on development; commercial businesses have different priorities for their investments.”
Carlos Rey-Moreno, co-manager of APC’s Local Access Programme (LocNet), provided a macroeconomic perspective to analyse the gaps that constrain the bridging of the digital gap.
“At the macro level, the money is mostly flowing into large transactions: multilateral deals, national funds, financing, big operators, fibre backhauls, tower companies, data centres,” Rey-Moreno said. “They are important and contribute to closing the digital divide, but they are not enough.”
He underlined that to achieve meaningful connectivity for the communities that are still excluded, “We need to finance a much wider ecosystem of models... If we want to close the digital divide, we need to also close the financing divide behind it.”
Building capacity one community at a time
Capacity building was also a central thread throughout WSIS, with the challenge of extending the focus of digital inclusion beyond mainly building infrastructure. “Digital inclusion as a driver of community development” was a sessions hosted by the ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau (TDB), Rhizomatica and APC, focused on sharing the successful experience of a year-long blended training programme developed for five years in Latin America and now translated to the African context. “Sustainable digital transformation is most successful when communities are at the centre of the process,” stated a message shared by Cosmas Zavazava, director TDB. “This means listening to local needs. This means engaging communities from the design stage of initiatives, building on local knowledge and working with trusted partners.”
Esterhuysen highlighted the experience of bringing the initiative to Africa and the challenges involved. “The first lesson is to take care of contexts. We did the research, we looked at what are the differences in the regions and how that would impact on the needs. And then the second learning that we identified is the importance of partnerships,” she explained. The blended training and bootcamps are instances that bring together regulators, policy makers, journalists, activists and operators in one capacity-building encounter.
As a trainer in the initial LAC programme who then helped coordinate its implementation in Africa, Carlos Baca from REDES A.C. and Rhizomatica was deeply involved in the development of the initiative. “Locally rooted solutions can be sustainable over time, having deep impacts on the population,” Baca said. “We need to include in the training questions about sustainability, about local government. Local knowledge is also a fundamental resource.”
Keeping pace with emerging threats
As spaces for multistakeholder engagement shrink globally, as we saw with the recent cancellation of RightsCon, having venues for dialogue as well as avenues for engagement is more critical than ever. It is crucial for civil society to have a seat at the table and ensure that their voices are integrated into any paths forward.
As we start to turn our focus to the upcoming Internet Governance Forum (IGF) later this year, we will continue to advocate for multistakeholder dialogue and strengthening the participation of all sectors, particularly civil society and the absent marginalised voices. Anriette Esterhuysen reflected on how IGF can become more impactful following its permanent UN mandate, emphasising that IGF's value lies in collaboration during the session “From negotiation to implementation: Reimagining the IGF in the WSIS+20 era”. Addressing complex digital policy challenges requires governments, civil society, the technical community and other stakeholders to work together year-round.
The National and Regional IGF Initiatives (NRI) were emphasised as an important mechanism in this direction. In the session “From dialogue to practice: NRI-driven multistakeholder labs for WSIS implementation”, APC member Colnodo participated in discussions looking to connect local experiences with global WSIS implementation. The session focused on the concept of NRI Labs, which are described as “voluntary, non-negotiating spaces within the IGF ecosystem where stakeholders can exchange experiences, foster peer learning, explore practical approaches and identify innovative ways to implement WSIS Action Lines and GDC commitments.”
A call for accountability during the first Global Dialogue on AI
Perhaps the most urgent need for grounded recommendations sits within current dialogues on artificial intelligence (AI), as its implementation far outpaces the development of rights-respecting policies. As part of the Global Digital Justice Forum and the Global Digital Rights Coalition, APC promoted civil society priorities in a post WSIS+20 review context by organising a side event titled "Centring human agency and dignity: Operationalising AI red lines with a global perspective".
The recognition of AI harms was also echoed by Jamila Venturini, co-executive director of APC member organisation Derechos Digitales during the Global Dialogue on AI Governance that ran alongside the WSIS Forum.
“We need binding commitments on AI transparency, accountability and redress. Communities impacted by AI must be part of the conversation,” Venturini stated.
As noted by Raman Jit Singh Chima, global programme director at APC, during a keynote address at the Global Dialogue on AI Governance high-level governmental segment, increased engagement with impacted communities and environmental defenders is crucial. He stated: “As my colleague Rebecca Ryakitimbo put it earlier today, we need to reframe the conversations here to talk about communities not as a ‘last mile’ policy problem, but a ‘first mile’ priority and stakeholder.”
Overall, members, partners and the APC team converged in stressing that Global South voices and feminist perspectives are essential to building more equitable and inclusive AI governance. They also highlighted that meaningful governance requires participation, accountability and sustained collaboration beyond dialogue.
Moving forward, APC will keep pushing for a rights-respecting framework, including the Feminist Guiding Principles and Commitments for Global AI Governance, which explores the concrete actions, indicators and accountability mechanisms needed to turn commitments into practice, delivering concrete recommendations for governments and decision makers. “These principles and commitments are a first step. The conversation continues, it goes beyond digital justice or gender justice. We need you to share, sign on and push for their implementation,” underlined Karla Velasco Ramos, APC Women’s Rights Programme policy and advocacy coordinator.