The 17th annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) featured discussions on some of the most pressing Internet and digital policy issues, including connectivity and human rights, Internet fragmentation, cybersecurity, and new and emerging technologies. The Forum’s outcomes will serve as a framework for the Global Digital Compact countries are expected to agree at the UN Summit of the Future in 2024.

Convening in Africa for the first time in 11 years, the Forum addressed the theme, ‘Resilient Internet for a Shared Sustainable and Common Future.’ The meeting shone a spotlight on the least connected region, with 60% of Africa’s population lacking Internet access, and highlighted that globally, Internet access remains elusive for 2.7 billion people.

“The Internet is the platform that will accelerate progress towards the SDGs,” said UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Li Junhua. “The digital frontier is where the truly transformational power will be realized and the important space for accelerating projects towards the SDGs,” he noted.

In his message to the Forum, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said his proposed Global Digital Compact on an open, free, inclusive, and secure digital future for all aims to deliver in three areas: achieving universal connectivity; providing a safe, secure, human-centered digital space; and fostering the safe and responsible use of data.

IGF intersessional work, conducted through policy networks, best practice forums, dynamic coalitions, and other initiatives, contributed to the IGF community sessions focusing on five thematic area tracks:

• Addressing advanced technologies, including AI, where human-centric artificial intelligence (AI), trust, security, and privacy, and content moderation and AI were among the issues discussed;
• Avoiding internet fragmentation, where drivers of fragmentation, and multistakeholder governance mechanisms and regulatory and policy approaches were highlighted;
• Connecting all people and safeguarding human rights, where discussions focused on the digital divide, the gender digital divide, human rights, resilient infrastructure, and education and labor;
• Enabling safety, security, and accountability, where participants addressed the role of policymakers in promoting cybersecurity, tackling cybercrime, protecting women against online gender-based violence, and online safety and disinformation; and
• Governing data and protecting privacy, where participants discussed, inter alia: the digital commons, global digital public goods, and the digital economy and the SDGs; protecting data privacy and upholding data justice; and multistakeholder approaches to governing data.

The IGF High-Level Leaders Track, IGF Youth Track, and IGF Parliamentary Track also convened.

IGF 2022 took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 28 November to 2 December. The Government of Ethiopia hosted the Forum, with support from the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). [Draft IGF 2022 Summary] [IGF 2022 Messages] [DESA Curtain Raiser] [DESA Press Release] [UN News Release]