Affordable and Secure Digital Infrastructure for Media and Journalists (December 2025)
As part of the side-event programming of the WSIS+20 UN GA High-Level Meeting, GFMD is organising the online session ““Affordable and Secure Digital Infrastructure for Media and Journalists.”
Date: December 15, 2025
Time: 10:00-11:00 New York time / 16.00-17.00 CET
Key Action Points and Takeaways
Digital governance is central to the advancement of media freedom. Stakeholders must support public-interest infrastructure for media, including alternative and cooperative models, to reduce structural dependency on dominant technology platforms and strengthen resilient and plural journalism ecosystems.
Media freedom is also central for the operationalisation of the WSIS+20 vision. Through the WSIS+20 commitments, governments need to integrate media freedom, journalist safety, and information integrity safeguards into their digital governance frameworks and their national DPI strategies.
Media freedom can be an enabling right for all other human rights and democratic values. To that end, governments must advance human rights-respecting DPI through openness, interoperability, public interest design, and multistakeholder oversight, including alignment with human rights standards and DPI safeguards.
Description
Media and journalism have long been recognized as key actors in fostering a people-centred and inclusive Information Society. The WSIS+20 Review process, and the forthcoming Outcome Document, reaffirm the essential role of independent media and journalism. The WSIS Review process also highlights the importance of public-interest infrastructure and open-technology standards as means of delivering digital services at scale and expanding social and economic opportunities for all.
Building on these core WSIS elements, and at the intersection of media independence and public-interest digital infrastructure, this session, co-organized by the Global Forum for Media Development and ARTICLE 19, aims to explore how the WSIS+20 commitments can be translated into practical actions.
As we look ahead to the implementation phase of the WSIS+20 Outcome Document, the Journalism Cloud Alliance (JCA) will be introduced to showcase a collaborative initiative designed to advance open and affordable digital tools and services for journalists and media organizations. By showcasing the JCA and other multistakeholder efforts, the session will demonstrate how WSIS commitments can be operationalized to build an inclusive, sustainable, and human-rights-based digital ecosystem.
Intended for professional media, international, regional, and local media support organizations, it will be interactive, inviting participants to reflect on WSIS public-interest infrastructure priorities in the context of strengthening media and journalism.
Speakers
Anna Oosterlinck, Senior Advisor, ARTICLE 19
Annelies Riezebos, Senior Policy Officer FoE online, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, KNL
Emanuele Sapienza, Global Lead, Open and Inclusive Public Sphere, UNDP
Isabelle Lois, Senior Policy Advisor, DETEC, Federal Office of Communications OFCOM, Switzerland
Michael J. Oghia, Project Manager, JCA
Bojana Kostic, Senior Digital Policy Advisor, GFMD (moderator)
Partner organizations
Resources and literature review
Right Respecting Digital Public Infrastructure Principles, Freedom Online Coalition, 2025. The document seeks to ensure that DPI is built with a commitment to fostering responsible innovation and economic growth so societies and businesses can thrive in today’s digital economy
Sovereignty-as-a-service: How big tech companies co-opt and redefine digital sovereignty, R Grohmann, Sage Journal, 2025 (open access). The article critically examines the officially released documents of big tech companies and shows how these companies respond to regulatory pressures, particularly in Europe, by offering modular and branded solutions that frame sovereignty as a technical, legal, and infrastructural matter.
Digital Sovereignty for Europe, T. Madiega, European Parliament, 2020. This document explains the context of the emerging quest for 'digital sovereignty', and provides an overview of the measures currently being discussed and/or proposed to enhance European autonomy in the digital field.
Infrastructure for the Public: A Primer for Advocacy, M. J. Oghia, Global Forum for Media Development / Journalism Cloud Alliance, 2025. This primer presents public-interest infrastructure as an human-rights based, democratic and community-driven alternative to monopolistic digital systems.
Designed for Control: Rethinking infrastructure, power and the public, P. Hewawaravita, Balance, 2025. The article critiques how digital public infrastructure is being framed and deployed, showing that without attention to power, equity, and rights, these systems can deepen exclusion and entrench control rather than serve the public interest.
Resources from UNDP
Agenda
16.00-16.05
Welcome and introduction
Introduce session goals and relevance to WSIS+20.
Frame the discussion: operationalising the WSIS+20 Outcome Document to support media independence, access to information, and secure digital technologies.
Introducing the speakers.
16.05-16.10
Context Setting: WSIS+20 and Digital infrastructure needs
Key provisions in the Outcome Document relevant to media, access to information, and public-interest digital infrastructure.
Challenges and opportunities for affordable, interoperable, and secure infrastructure for media ecosystems.
16.10-16.20
The Journalism Cloud Alliance
The vision behind the JCA and its role in supporting open and affordable tools for journalists.
Concrete examples: services, collaborative governance model, early use cases.
16.20-16.40
Recommendations to operationalise WSIS+20 Outcomes
How governments/IGOs see their role in operationalising WSIS+20 outcomes.
Policy levers, funding mechanisms, and governance pathways to support secure, affordable digital infrastructure for media and journalists.
16.50-16.55
Discussion and Q&A
What are the key priorities needed to turn WSIS commitments into concrete support for the media and journalists?
16.55-17.00
Closing remarks and key messages
Wrap up key takeaways.
Point to next steps for engaging with the JCA and WSIS+20 implementation.
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