How Global Digital Cooperation Entered Its Implementation Phase

With WSIS+20 concluded and the Global Digital Compact adopted, digital policy is moving into an implementation phase. This article traces what changed, what was delivered, and what comes next.

The dust has finally settled on the United Nations General Assembly’s twenty-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+20). On 17 December 2025, member states adopted a consensus outcome document that does more than just look back at the last two decades: it cements the architecture of global digital governance, aligned with 2030 Sustainable Digital Goals, for the next ten years. For the technical community, the results are a hard-won victory for the multistakeholder model, but they also signal the start of a more complex chapter.

From WSIS to the Global Digital Compact and WSIS+20

UN engagement with digital development - previously known as the Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) - began with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005. WSIS set out a vision for a "people-centred, inclusive, and development-oriented Information Society" and established a framework that has guided global digital cooperation for two decades.

For much of that time, WSIS served as a platform for dialogue, coordination between UN agencies and stakeholders, and periodic review. Over the past three years, however, digital cooperation has entered a more operational phase, shaped by the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and the WSIS+20 review.

During this same period, the RIPE NCC has intensified its engagement as part of the technical community - contributing to the GDC consultations under the United Nations Secretary-General’s Our Common Agenda process (2022–2024), participating in preparatory meetings for the WSIS+20 review organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) (2024–2025), and engaging across Partner2Connect, the GDC and WSIS+20 consultations. The objective has been to ensure that emerging commitments remain grounded in technical realities and continue to support an open, interoperable, secure and resilient Internet.

With the adoption of the GDC at the Summit of the Future in September 2024 and the approval of the WSIS outcome document by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2025, the shift toward implementation has been made explicit. Global digital cooperation has entered a more decisive phase, where broad commitments to connectivity, inclusion and trust are increasingly being translated into delivery and accountability.

Together with the upcoming ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in 2026, the GDC and the WSIS+20 review form a continuous policy trajectory shaping how digital development and Internet governance are expected to function within the United Nations system. In this article, we trace that trajectory by examining the evolution of these processes, the outcomes agreed in New York in December 2025, and what the shift toward WSIS+20 implementation means for the next phase of global digital cooperation, with a focus on the RIPE NCC’s engagement throughout.

WSIS is a living framework - and one that still matters

WSIS was never a one-off event. It created a living framework for digital development and Internet governance, combining political vision with practical cooperation between stakeholders.

WSIS produced a set of foundational documents - including the Geneva Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action, the Tunis Commitment, and the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society - which were reviewed in 2015 and again in 2025. Together, these texts established access, inclusion and development as global priorities, and introduced a shared understanding of Internet governance based on multistakeholder cooperation.

The most significant institutional outcome of the Tunis agenda was the creation of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), an open platform for public policy dialogue on Internet-related issues. This was a negotiated solution: rather than placing the Internet under a new intergovernmental authority, governments agreed to create a forum for discussion and coordination without operational control. The Tunis Agenda also reflected an important reality: that governments do not run the Internet. Its day-to-day operation depends on the technical community, network operators, private companies, civil society and researchers.

In this way, WSIS did something structurally important: it embedded the Internet’s distributed, cooperative model into global governance and legitimised the multistakeholder approach as the basis for managing the development of the Internet and related technologies at a global level.

At the same time, WSIS was never designed to cover every dimension of global digital development. Many economic and financial mechanisms, including investment frameworks, largely sit outside its scope. This limitation has become more visible as attention has shifted from principle-setting toward implementation.

The launch of Partner2Connect (P2C) at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2021 signalled this shift toward more concrete and measurable action on infrastructure, skills, and capacity building. As the ITU’s multistakeholder Digital Coalition, P2C provides a platform to mobilise and announce new partnerships and commitments. Within this framework, the RIPE NCC contributed a two-year capacity-building programme to support scalable, secure, resilient, and inclusive Internet ecosystems as part of sustainable digital transformation.

The Global Digital Compact: updating the political architecture

If the P2C platform focuses on mobilisation and delivery, the GDC updated the political framework. Adopted in September 2024 as part of the Pact of the Future, the GDC aimed to align the United Nations system around a shared vision of an inclusive, secure, and development-oriented digital future, including artificial intelligence and data governance. It sets out commitments to uphold human rights online, close the digital divide, and take concrete steps to make the digital space safer and more secure.

The RIPE NCC participated throughout the GDC consultations in 2023-2024, submitting written and spoken contributions that reflected the technical community’s experience: that the Internet’s success depends on distributed governance, open standards, and cooperation across institutional boundaries. In this sense, the GDC did not replace WSIS, but refreshed it for a new geopolitical and technological context.

Our contributions focused on connectivity, digital public goods, capacity building, and trust and security issues, while also highlighting the risk that too many overlapping initiatives can drain resources and fragment discussions. The GDC also reaffirmed the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as the "premier platform for Internet governance" - language that was later carried into the WSIS+20 outcome document.

WSIS+20: convergence, not closure

The WSIS+20 review was not a ceremonial anniversary. It marked a moment when two decades of Internet governance and digital policy were reconciled with today’s operational realities.

Over eleven months of preparatory work, the RIPE NCC contributed to the CSTD process - including the WSIS High-Level Meeting consultation, the WSIS Elements Paper, WSIS Zero Draft and its successive revisions - and produced a WSIS+20 Key Fact Sheet and Vision document to deepen understanding of the Internet ecosystem.

Our focus remained consistent: scaling connectivity, reinforcing Internet governance norms developed by the multistakeholder community, supporting rights in the digital age, and promoting IPv6 deployment, resilience, scalability and interoperability. We also emphasised that Internet governance must remain global and multistakeholder in nature, with the full involvement of governments, the private sector, civil society, international organisations, the technical and academic communities.

The intergovernmental negotiations revealed both strong political support for digital development and structural weaknesses in the WSIS framework. While member states reaffirmed commitments to inclusion, connectivity and multistakeholder cooperation, the process exposed a persistent gap - particularly the lack of clear financial mechanisms to support implementation.

This is why paragraph 67 of the WSIS+20 Outcome Document is significant. It instructs the ITU, as the permanent secretariat of the United Nations Group on the Information Society, to assess funding gaps and propose concrete mechanisms to strengthen financial support for digital development, with results due in 2027. For the first time, WSIS implementation is being explicitly linked to financing and accountability

What WSIS+20 delivered

The RIPE NCC welcomes the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the WSIS+20 Outcome Document, concluding the twenty-year review process.

The document reaffirms multistakeholder cooperation as central to effective digital governance, anchors digital development in international human rights, and stresses the importance of an open, interoperable, secure and stable global Internet in achieving sustainable development and digital inclusion. It also recognises the shared responsibility of all stakeholder groups and renews commitments to prevent and address Internet fragmentation.

We support the decision to establish the IGF as a permanent United Nations forum and the strengthened links between WSIS follow-up processes, the SDGs, and the GDC.

This outcome reinforces two decades of engagement: the Internet’s governance model is not an exception to global governance, but a practical example of how multistakeholder cooperation can deliver public value. We will continue engaging in WSIS+20 follow-up, including through discussions at our upcoming EU Government Roundtable in Brussels. While implementation of the WSIS action lines remains ongoing, the foundations for the next phase are now in place.

Why GDC, IGF, and WSIS engagement matters for the RIPE NCC

Without active participation from the technical community and other non-governmental actors, the outcomes of the WSIS+20 review could have taken a different direction.

By engaging directly, the RIPE NCC ensured that technical realities informed the negotiations, linking Internet infrastructure to broader development goals while safeguarding the neutrality and independence of its operations. At a time when intergovernmental consensus is increasingly difficult, reaffirming the multistakeholder model is more than procedural - it recognises that Internet governance depends on collaboration, technical coordination, resilient infrastructure and inclusive participation.

Translating commitments into practice now requires clear roadmaps and sustainable financing. Here, the RIPE NCC’s experience in capacity building, training and community-led initiatives can make a tangible contribution. Our voice matters in helping to ensure that the Internet remains open, interoperable, secure and capable of supporting equitable digital progress.

Why ITU PP-26 is the next critical moment

WSIS+20 sets direction, but it does not implement itself. The ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-26) is where commitments adopted at the United Nations level are translated into the mandate and work of the International Telecommunication Union.

PP-26 is not about reopening WSIS+20 - it's about ensuring that implementation strengthens rather than disrupts the Internet’s foundations, and that the ITU’s role complements rather than duplicates the work of other actors. For the technical community, it is also the moment to bring infrastructure realities back to the centre of policy discussions.

In short, PP-26 will help determine whether WSIS+20 outcomes are implemented in a technically sound, institutionally coherent and development-oriented way.

From policy to practice

The past three years have not been a series of parallel processes, but a gradual alignment. WSIS provided the framework. The Global Digital Compact updated the political architecture. Partner2Connect mobilised delivery. WSIS+20 brought these strands together.

PP-26 may shape how they are implemented, particularly across the ITU’s core areas of spectrum management, digital development and telecommunication standardisation. Meanwhile, the United Nations Group on the Information Society (UNGIS) will prepare a joint implementation roadmap to strengthen coherence between WSIS and the Global Digital Compact, to be presented to the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) in 2026.

The RIPE NCC’s role across all these processes has been consistent: to ensure that global digital cooperation remains connected to the Internet as it actually exists, a network of networks, built and operated through cooperation, and sustained by technical communities around the world.

That is what it means to move from digital diplomacy to digital delivery.

Appendix

A. The RIPE NCC and global digital policy engagement

The RIPE NCC engages with United Nations bodies, governments and policymakers through RIPE NCC Government Roundtables, RIPE NCC Open House sessions, RIPE Meetings and the RIPE Cooperation Working Group. These platforms provide structured dialogue between the technical community and governmental and UN leadership, ensuring that policy discussions reflect operational realities. See our external consultations.

Processes such as the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and the Global Digital Compact (GDC) do not manage the Internet. However, they shape global digital policy narratives that influence regulation, funding priorities and international cooperation.

The RIPE NCC’s engagement helps ensure that global digital cooperation remains connected to the Internet as it actually operates: a distributed network of networks built and maintained through technical coordination and community cooperation.

In practical terms, our contribution includes the following:

Building shared understanding between policymakers and the technical community
Providing technical expertise that links infrastructure to broader societal development
Supporting open, interoperable, secure and resilient Internet operations

Contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

RIPE NCC activities contribute directly and indirectly to several SDGs, including:

SDG 4, Quality Education: Supporting online learning, technical training and knowledge sharing
SDG 9, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure: Strengthening resilient infrastructure and sustaining the digital commons
SDG 16, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions: Enabling access to information and trusted digital services
SDG 17, Partnerships for the Goals: Supporting global interoperability and cross-border cooperation

B. Timeline of key processes and RIPE NCC contributions

Global Digital Compact (2023–2024)

WSIS+20 review (2024–2025)

Community engagement

April 2025: RIPE NCC Open House session on WSIS+20
June 2025: Participation in IGF 2025 workshops and plenary sessions
July 2025: Participation in the WSIS+20 High-Level Meeting (Geneva)

Formal submissions (February–December 2025)

December 2025: United Nations General Assembly

Organisation of the side event Connecting the Dots, on the relationship between WSIS, the IGF and the GDC, and the role of the technical community

C. Looking ahead: 2026 milestones

RIPE NCC EU Government Roundtable, 3 March 2026 (Brussels)
WSIS Forum 2026, 6–10 July 2026 (Geneva)
ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-26), 9–27 November 2026