From WSIS to Now: What Next for Digital Justice
The Global Digital Justice Forum, IT for Change, Third Wold Network and the Association for Progressive Communications come together to hold a three-day strategy meeting for non-profit organisations around the world, working on the intersections of the society and digital. This strategy meeting will determine a combine vision for our digital justice future and the way for civil society to engage with the powers that be.
The meeting is scheduled from March 3, 2024 to March 5, 2024 in Penang, Malaysia.
Concept Note - From WSIS to Now: What Next for Digital Justice?
A poignant hope articulated in the 2005 Tunis Agenda for the Information Society (part of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process) goes thus, “We are greatly encouraged by the fact that advances in communication technology, and high-speed data networks are continuously increasing the possibilities for developing countries, and countries with economies in transition, to participate in the global market for ICT-enabled services on the basis of their comparative advantage.”[1]
Cut to the present, with two decades gone by, the UN Secretary General’s policy brief on the Global Digital Compact strikes a more somber note, “Our digital world is one of stark divides: A persistent digital access divide across regions, gender, income, language, and age groups; growing data divides that disadvantage developing countries; and an innovation divide resulting in highly unequal wealth generation, dominated by a handful of big platforms and states.”[2] Read more.
Agenda for the meeting
The meeting will take place over three days, and will follow the below structure:
| Date and time | Activity | Resource Persons | Relevant material (if any) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1
03/03/2024 | |||
| 17.00-18.00 | Registration and per diem | Kamini (TWN) and Malavika (IT for Change) | |
| 18.00-18.45 | Welcome and Introductions | Anita + ITfC team | |
| 18.45-20.00 | - Context setting for the meeting and explaining agenda
- Reflections and expectations |
Anita, Valeria, Yoke Ling | |
| 20.00-21.00 | Dinner | ||
| Day 2
04/03/2024 | |||
| 9.00-10.50 | From WSIS to now - 3 things that have changed - promise, pitfalls - 7 minutes per person |
|
|
| 10.50-11.20 | Break | ||
| 11.20-12.30 | The digital geoeconomic status quo and multilateral rules (data, AI, platformisation as crosscutting) - 8 min per person |
|
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| 12.30-13.30 | Lunch | ||
| 13.30-15.00 | Recovering the South - what do sovereignty, decoloniality and selfdetermination really mean - 8 min each |
|
|
| 15.00-15.30 | Break | ||
| 15.30-17.00 | Towards a CS action agenda
a) What are the priority areas for a common digital justice agenda? b) What do we need to prioritise for civil society action? c) What are our responses/ what needs to be done? and When? d) intersection of processes in the multilateral regime? Groups to refer to political calendar for advocacy national level engagements regional civil society events |
||
| Day 3
05/03/2024 | |||
| 9.30-10.30 | - Plenary - Review of Day 1
- Towards a CS agenda - inputs from groups - Cluster formation |
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| 10.30-10.50 | Break | ||
| 10.50-12.30 | Championing a way forward towards actionable work (done through group work in clusters) | ||
| 12.30-13.30 | Lunch | ||
| 13.30-15.00 | Closing plenary | ||
Resources for the event
Schedule of civil society events
Draft political calendar to be shared in advance for further inputs