IGF 2023 Networking Session #110 Global South Solidarities for Global Digital Governance

The purpose of this networking session is to set up advocacy strategies in different forums, through cooperation and complementarity between different civil society entities from the Global South. This meeting is a continuation of a meeting held in November 2022 in São Paulo (Brazil) and a similar meeting to be held in June 2023 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Our goal is to have a safe space for exchanges, solidarity building and collective strategizing on digital rights policy making and explore experiences and ways to advance this conversation into more multilateral forums such as G20 (India and Brazil presidencies) and the Global Partnership for AI (India’s presidency). We believe that these spaces enhance the capability of NGOs to support each other and to openly discuss obstacles and barriers. Through this session, we will bring together digital and data rights organisations from various Global South jurisdictions to build solidarities of language and purpose, and ensure that a broader, cohesive agenda on data rights is built - especially on this momentum of digital cooperation, such as with the UN Global Digital Compact. While the session will be facilitated by organisers from Brazil, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, we intend for this to be a truly collective space, and therefore will encourage participants to share their expertise and knowledge. The organisers will frame the session and provide context, but subsequent to this, we intend for the session to be an organic one without a pre-defined order or formal script. We want to sensitize each other to challenges, obstacles of different geographies, and how we can help each other and strengthen our voices through research, advocacy and activist campaigns. At the meeting held in São Paulo, in 2022, different NGOs reported which policy arenas they are monitoring and the different themes on which they work. We are conducting a similar meeting at RightsCon to advance an agenda of coordination and mutual collaboration, identifying the spaces that need greater understanding and action on the part of civil society. With this session at IGF, we want to specifically discuss global digital governance priorities and surface interests and needs for the Global South. From this session, we will produce a public position note discussing the digital experiences of organizations (including a shared research agenda) and identify potential pathways for future engagement. The facilitators will also share their experiences in specific arenas and policy spaces to trigger conversations about obstacles, learnings and opportunities.

While there is no formal script for the session, the organisers will begin the session with some context setting. This will involve the use of interactive tools such as Menti polls that can be accessed by participants both onsite and online. Subsequent to this, with the agile coordination between the onsite and online moderators, we will facilitate an organic discussion and provide opportunities for interventions from both onsite and online participants. To help all participants better keep track of the discussion, we will also have two note takers who will be populating a live document with notes that can be accessed by all participants.