I. Terms of Reference of the Panel
I. TERMS OF REFERENCE OF THE PANEL
- The High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation convened by the UN Secretary-General will advance proposals to strengthen cooperation in the digital space among Governments, the private sector, civil society, international organisations, the technical and academic communities and all other relevant stakeholders. The Panel’s report and its recommendations will provide a high-level independent contribution to the broader public debate on digital cooperation frameworks and support Member States in their consultations on these issues.
- The Panel will consist of 20 eminent leaders from Governments, private sector, academia, the technical community, and civil society led by two co-chairs. Its composition will be balanced in terms of gender, age, geographic representation, and area of expertise. The Panel members will serve in their personal capacity.
- The Panel shall meet in person at least once. Additional interactions shall be organised for the Panel as a whole by electronic means or through ad hoc group consultations. The Panel will engage and consult widely with governments, private sector, academia, technical community, civil society, and inter-governmental organisations across the world. It shall be agile and innovative in interacting with existing processes and platforms as well as in harnessing inputs from diverse stakeholders.
- In its report to the Secretary-General, the Panel shall identify good practices and opportunities, gaps and challenges in digital cooperation. It shall also outline major trends in the development and deployment of emerging digital technologies, business models, and policies and the possibilities and challenges they generate for digital cooperation.
- In particular, the report shall:
- Raise awareness among policy makers and the general public about the transformative impact of digital technologies across society and the economy;
- Suggest ways to bridge disciplines on digital cooperation by identifying policy, research and information gaps as well as ways to improve interdisciplinary thinking and cross-domain action on digital technologies;
- Present recommendations for effective, inclusive, accountable systems of digital cooperation among all relevant actors in the digital space.
- The recommendations in the report shall seek to maximise the potential of digital technologies to contribute inter alia to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to support progress across a range of themes, including digital empowerment, inclusive finance, employment, entrepreneurship, trade and cross border data flows.
- They shall also contribute to raising individual and systemic capacities to maximise the benefits of emerging digital technologies; to facilitating the participation of all stakeholder groups, especially youth and women, in the digital sphere and; to enhancing implementation of existing digital policies as well as norms.
- The Panel shall avoid duplication with existing forums for digital cooperation. It shall fully respect current UN structures as well as national, technical community and industry prerogatives in the development and governance of digital technologies.
- The Panel will complete its deliberations and submit its final report, including actionable recommendations, within a nine-month period.
- The deliberations of the Panel will be supported by a small secretariat and funded by donor resources. The Secretariat shall seek to leverage existing platforms and partners, including UN agencies, working in the related domains.
Recent Comments on this Site
31st July 2021 at 6:00 pm
There have been some comments about the messages on the WS-16 mailing list rather than being logged as part of the messages procedure. The final result was a list of messages agreed by consensus.
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11th July 2021 at 5:39 pm
I suggest to rephrase more concrete: There must be a global collaborative effort in the form of dialogic regulation between governments, tech companies, and civil society to develop a solution grounded in human rights that will address disinformation and harmful content
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11th July 2021 at 5:36 pm
delete “being”
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11th July 2021 at 5:34 pm
I suggest tp rephrase a bit more concrete: Liberal approaches of governments towards online platforms at there start of the platform economy led to …
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11th July 2021 at 5:24 pm
Although I was the one who mentioned this during the session, I am not sure that we should push for frequency regulation – besides, it is very likely to be be outside our scope
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11th July 2021 at 1:12 pm
NEW WORDING PROPOSED:
One institution ALONE CANNOT solve the problem. Multistakeholder approach IS needed, TO BUILD AN HARMONIOUS SYSTEM WHERE HARD AND SOFT REGULATION MECHANISMS FIND A BALANCE WITHIN THEIR RESPECTIVE BOUNDARIES, MANDATES AND ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS. IN PARTICULAR Platforms have a big stake, and should be required to develop transparent self/co-regulation.
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11th July 2021 at 1:09 pm
propose to add at the end of the phrase: “Those defenses should be strengthened by media education: a field where public service broadcasters have a special role to play based on their remits.
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11th July 2021 at 1:01 pm
This legitimacy needs to arise from clear legislative frameworks in which hard regulation and soft regulations could find an equilibrium, each one with its own specific role and with clear boundaries and accountability mechanisms.
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11th July 2021 at 12:57 pm
[that will address disinformation and harmful content]
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10th July 2021 at 9:16 pm
As I mentioned during the session, I believe we should be careful with using the term ‘content moderation’ in the context of the Internet infrastructure level, as these services are typically very far removed from the actual content. I would like to suggest amending this paragraph to read: “Recent cases show that certain infrastructure providers unwillingly take action that could be argued to be content moderation by suspending services for the platforms in an ad-hoc manner without any transparent policy. But infrastructure services have limited possible options, which tend to be temporary solutions (clearing cache), overbroad reactions (limiting access) or options that open up websites to cyberattack (terminating services of particular users).”
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