Session
Description:
The implementation of the IGF's permanent mandate offers an opportunity to strengthen coordination across a complex digital governance landscape. As AI reshapes the Internet and digital policy, improving coherence among institutions, stakeholders, and governance processes is essential to addressing shared challenges while preserving the multistakeholder model. This workshop will introduce the proposed Dynamic Coalition on Global Digital Governance Coordination (DC-GDGC) as a platform for dialogue, collaboration, and knowledge sharing on governance coordination. Bringing together representatives from governments, international organizations, the technical community, civil society, academia, and the private sector, the session will examine practical approaches, lessons learned, and successful coordination practices that can reduce fragmentation, strengthen policy coherence, and improve collaboration across global, regional, and national digital governance processes. Moving beyond a traditional panel, the workshop will operate as a Coordination Challenge Lab. Following brief framing remarks and an opening poll, onsite and online participants will work through practical digital and AI governance scenarios to identify which institutions and stakeholders need to coordinate, where gaps or overlaps exist, and what mechanisms could improve cooperation. Participants will build a Digital Governance Coordination Map in real time, while invited experts from different stakeholder groups will act as challengers and resource persons. The session will conclude with participants prioritizing the three coordination gaps most urgently requiring action and identifying practical next steps. This participatory process will ensure that the session's recommendations are generated by the wider room. The resulting map, priorities, and recommendations will be captured in a concise session report to inform DC-GDGC's work and contribute to broader efforts to strengthen cooperation and coherence across the digital governance ecosystem.
The implementation of the IGF's permanent mandate offers an opportunity to strengthen coordination across a complex digital governance landscape. As AI reshapes the Internet and digital policy, improving coherence among institutions, stakeholders, and governance processes is essential to addressing shared challenges while preserving the multistakeholder model. This workshop will introduce the proposed Dynamic Coalition on Global Digital Governance Coordination (DC-GDGC) as a platform for dialogue, collaboration, and knowledge sharing on governance coordination. Bringing together representatives from governments, international organizations, the technical community, civil society, academia, and the private sector, the session will examine practical approaches, lessons learned, and successful coordination practices that can reduce fragmentation, strengthen policy coherence, and improve collaboration across global, regional, and national digital governance processes. Moving beyond a traditional panel, the workshop will operate as a Coordination Challenge Lab. Following brief framing remarks and an opening poll, onsite and online participants will work through practical digital and AI governance scenarios to identify which institutions and stakeholders need to coordinate, where gaps or overlaps exist, and what mechanisms could improve cooperation. Participants will build a Digital Governance Coordination Map in real time, while invited experts from different stakeholder groups will act as challengers and resource persons. The session will conclude with participants prioritizing the three coordination gaps most urgently requiring action and identifying practical next steps. This participatory process will ensure that the session's recommendations are generated by the wider room. The resulting map, priorities, and recommendations will be captured in a concise session report to inform DC-GDGC's work and contribute to broader efforts to strengthen cooperation and coherence across the digital governance ecosystem.
Policy Question(s)
A. How can digital and AI governance be better coordinated without creating new layers of bureaucracy or weakening the multistakeholder model?
B. Where are the most consequential gaps and overlaps across Internet, digital, and AI governance, and what coordination mechanisms could address them?
C. What practical role can the proposed DC-GDGC play in connecting governance processes, sharing effective practices, and turning multistakeholder dialogue into coordinated action?
Expected Outcomes
The session will produce a participant-generated Digital Governance Coordination Map, identifying relevant actors, existing coordination mechanisms, gaps, overlaps, and missing connections across selected digital and AI governance challenges.
Through the Coordination Challenge Lab, participants will test coordination approaches against practical scenarios, exchange examples of successful practices, and identify where additional coordination would add value—and where it could create unnecessary complexity or bureaucracy.
Participants will collectively prioritize three coordination gaps for action and identify potential responses, including stronger connections between existing processes, knowledge sharing, further research, or new coordination mechanisms where justified.
The map, priority gaps, examples of effective practice, and recommendations will be captured in a concise session report. These outputs will inform discussion on the future work and priorities of the proposed DC-GDGC and provide participants with a practical framework for assessing governance coordination challenges.
Format
Roundtable
Duration (minutes): 90
Format description: The 90-minute roundtable enables the session to operate as a participatory Coordination Challenge Lab rather than a traditional panel. Brief framing remarks will be followed by an opening poll and practical governance scenarios. Onsite participants will work at tables while online participants engage with the same questions through shared digital tools. Participants will collaboratively build a Digital Governance Coordination Map, identifying actors, existing mechanisms, gaps, overlaps and missing connections. Invited experts will serve primarily as challengers and resource persons, responding to participants' findings rather than delivering sequential presentations. The final phase will bring onsite and online participants together to prioritize the three most urgent coordination gaps and identify practical next steps. The roundtable layout supports collaborative work and equitable participation, while 90 minutes provides sufficient time to move from problem identification through analysis to concrete, participant-generated outcomes.
Duration (minutes): 90
Format description: The 90-minute roundtable enables the session to operate as a participatory Coordination Challenge Lab rather than a traditional panel. Brief framing remarks will be followed by an opening poll and practical governance scenarios. Onsite participants will work at tables while online participants engage with the same questions through shared digital tools. Participants will collaboratively build a Digital Governance Coordination Map, identifying actors, existing mechanisms, gaps, overlaps and missing connections. Invited experts will serve primarily as challengers and resource persons, responding to participants' findings rather than delivering sequential presentations. The final phase will bring onsite and online participants together to prioritize the three most urgent coordination gaps and identify practical next steps. The roundtable layout supports collaborative work and equitable participation, while 90 minutes provides sufficient time to move from problem identification through analysis to concrete, participant-generated outcomes.
Hybrid Format: The Coordination Challenge Lab will treat onsite and online participants as one working group rather than separate audiences. Both will respond to the same live polls, scenarios and prioritization exercises. A shared digital workspace will capture contributions from both groups in real time as participants jointly build the Digital Governance Coordination Map.
The onsite moderator will facilitate the overall Lab, while the dedicated online moderator will actively bring virtual contributions, questions and challenges into each stage of the discussion. Invited experts will respond to findings generated by participants rather than deliver lengthy presentations.
Following scenario work, all participants will vote on the three most urgent coordination gaps and potential responses. Results will be displayed live and used for the closing synthesis. The experienced moderation and rapporteur team will ensure balanced participation, capture divergent perspectives, and integrate onsite and online contributions into the session outputs.
Organizer 1: Pari Esfandiari, 🔒Global TechnoPolitics Forum
Organizer 2: Yik Chan Chin, Beijing Normal University/UNU Macau
Organizer 3: Olga Cavalli, Argentina Ministy of Defense
Organizer 2: Yik Chan Chin, Beijing Normal University/UNU Macau
Organizer 3: Olga Cavalli, Argentina Ministy of Defense
Speaker 1: Olga Cavalli, Government, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 2: Anriette Esterhuysen, Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 3: Yik Chan Chin, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: Anriette Esterhuysen, Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 3: Yik Chan Chin, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Moderator
Pari Esfandiari, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Online Moderator
Olga Cavalli, Government, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Rapporteur
Yik Chan Chin, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
What will participants gain from attending this session?
