Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
Statement to the High-level Meeting of the UN General Assembly on the overall review of the implementation of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+20)
[As prepared for delivery]
Excellencies,
Our world looked very different when the Tunis Agenda was adopted in 2005.
1 billion people — around 15 per cent of the global population — was online, mainly through fixed broadband.
Social media and mobile Internet barely existed.
Artificial intelligence as we know it today was the stuff of science fiction.
Yet even as the technologies we take for granted today were in their infancy, UN Member States recognized that shaping “the Information Society" could not be left to chance.
It required coordinated action from governments, across the UN system, and among all stakeholders.
That recognition has not changed.
And neither has our responsibility to turn that vision into action as we enter the Intelligent Society.
AI is already redefining who gets access to opportunity, and who is locked out of an increasingly digital economy.
But it's only one expression of a much broader transformation.
The WSIS vision was never tied to a single technology.
Its strength has always been its neutrality and ability to evolve.
That is why this review must look not only at the past 20 years, but at the decades still to come.
AI might seem like the greatest test of the WSIS model yet.
But it also presents the greatest opportunity for WSIS to do what it has always done: Galvanize governments, industry, innovators, civil society, the technical community and marginalized groups around a shared responsibility for forward-looking, human-centered digital development.
The WSIS Action Lines guide us from aspiration to action, even in the age of AI: From investing in digital infrastructure, to ensuring meaningful and affordable connectivity, and safe, inclusive, multilingual digital spaces that everyone has the skills and confidence to navigate safely.
And through the Global Digital Compact, the world recommitted to the potential for human-centered digital cooperation that was first envisioned in Geneva and Tunis.
Now is the time to apply what we have learned in over two decades while recalling who this work is really for: The people outside this room who will probably never read today's outcome document, yet will profoundly feel its impacts.
That's the 2.2 billion people still completely offline, young people trying to enter schools and workplaces being totally reshaped by AI, and marginalized communities — from the forcibly displaced to persons with disabilities to linguistic minorities — whose needs remain underrepresented in digital spaces.
They — and billions of others who find the digital world unsafe, unaffordable, or irrelevant — are why WSIS continues to matter.
They also remind us that this has always been a people-centered vision — one embodied by the WSIS Forum, and one that does not end in 2025.
So long as meaningful connectivity and sustainable digital transformation are out of reach for entire communities, and as digital technologies continue to evolve at great speed, the work of WSIS — our work — remains unfinished.
Excellencies,
As the UN specialized agency for digital technologies, where the idea of WSIS was first raised and later endorsed by the General Assembly, ITU will continue to coordinate, convene, and support the implementation of WSIS outcomes alongside our members and UN partners.
In this context, as requested by ITU Member States, I am pleased to present the ITU
WSIS+20 Report: Building a digital future for all to this 80th session of the General Assembly, which I have linked in the online version of my statement.
As we look to 2035, I urge you to strengthen the multi-stakeholder model that defined WSIS from the start.
That's how we'll ensure the Intelligent Society will not be defined by technology alone, but by the choices we made and the actions we took to ensure digital benefits all people, everywhere.
