# IGF 2026 WS #79 Beyond Accessibility: From Access to Empowerment

## Description

As governments, businesses, and public institutions accelerate digital transformation, ensuring that people with disabilities can fully participate in the digital environment is both a human rights imperative and a policy priority. This session explores how legislation, policies, and practical frameworks can support accessible and inclusive digital participation while recognizing the diverse needs, capabilities, and contributions of people with disabilities.
The discussion will address three interconnected policy questions. First, what national and international legislation regulates access, accessibility, and guidance for people with disabilities in the digital environment? Participants will examine key legal and policy approaches and discuss how implementation can be strengthened across different regional, social, and economic contexts.
Second, what framework is necessary to ensure that the individual needs of people with disabilities are met? The session is grounded in the understanding that inclusion cannot be achieved through one-size-fits-all solutions. Effective policy must place human needs at the centre, creating frameworks that guarantee rights and accessibility while allowing flexibility for personalized solutions. Speakers will share models of digital inclusion that combine common standards with opportunities for individual choice, autonomy, and self-determination.
Third, how can individual capabilities be employed to benefit from artificial intelligence, digital applications, and online services? The session will explore how accessible technologies, inclusive design, digital skills, and AI can empower people with disabilities to build on their strengths, talents, and unique forms of intelligence. Rather than focusing on limitations, the discussion will highlight how individuals can contribute to innovation, education, employment, and civic participation when digital environments support their full potential.
Bringing together diverse international perspectives, the session will showcase best practices, the views of people with disabilities themselves, concrete impacts, and lessons learned, identifying policy approaches that advance accessibility while respecting individual needs and capabilities and ensuring that digital transformation remains people-centred and inclusive.

## Policy Question(s)

A.	What national and international legislation regulates access and guidance for people with disabilities in the digital environment?
B.	What framework is necessary to ensure individual needs of people with disabilities are met?
C.	How can individual capabilities be employed to benefit from artificial intelligence, digital applications and services?

## Expected Outcomes

The session will identify policy approaches that balance common accessibility standards with the diverse and individual needs of persons with disabilities. Drawing on international experiences and multi-stakeholder perspectives, participants will explore how legal and policy frameworks can support personalized solutions, meaningful participation, and equal opportunities in the digital environment.
Expected outputs include a summary of key recommendations, good practices, and lessons learned that can inform future policy discussions within the Internet Governance Forum and related digital inclusion initiatives. The session may also foster new connections among policymakers, disability organizations, researchers, and technology stakeholders, creating opportunities for continued collaboration.
Participants will gain a deeper understanding of rights-based and human-centred approaches to digital inclusion, learn about different national and international models, and acquire practical insights into how individual capabilities can be recognized and supported within inclusive digital policies and services.

## Reference Document

Reference Document

## Format

Roundtable
**Duration (minutes):** 90
**Format description:** A 90-minute roundtable format is particularly well suited to this session because the topic extends beyond accessibility compliance and requires the exploration of diverse experiences, policy approaches, and individual needs. The session addresses complex questions at the intersection of disability rights, digital inclusion, and participation, which benefit from meaningful dialogue rather than a series of presentations.
The roundtable setting encourages active engagement among stakeholders from government, civil society, academia, the technical community, and organizations of persons with disabilities. It supports the exchange of different perspectives and allows participants to contribute their own experiences and insights, reflecting the session’s core premise that effective inclusion cannot be achieved through one-size-fits-all solutions.
The 90-minute duration provides sufficient time for concise expert inputs, interactive discussion, audience participation, and the identification of practical recommendations. This format helps ensure a collaborative, people-centred conversation that can generate valuable insights and actionable outcomes.

## Hybrid Format

**Hybrid Format:** The session will be designed as a fully integrated hybrid roundtable, ensuring that online and onsite participants can contribute equally to the discussion. A dedicated moderator will actively engage both audiences, inviting questions and comments from online participants throughout the session rather than reserving them for the end. Speakers will be encouraged to respond to contributions regardless of whether they originate from the room or online.
To create a high-quality experience for all participants, the discussion will be structured around the policy questions and include interactive segments that invite reflections, examples, and challenges from different stakeholder groups.
Input to the policy questions will be gathered by live polling via mentimeter, f. e. “Does national legislation in your country regulate access and guidance for people with disabilities in the digital environment?“ Thus we will capture diverse perspectives and encourage active participation.

## Organizers

**Organizer 1:** Carola Croll, 🔒Stiftung Digitale Chancen / Digital Opprtunities Foundation

## Speakers

**Speaker 1:** Muhammad Shabbir, Private Sector, Asia-Pacific Group
**Speaker 2:** Vinton CERF, Private Sector, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
**Speaker 3:** Joan Katambi, Civil Society, African Group
**Speaker 4:** Gunela Astbrink, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

## Moderator

Carola Croll, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

## Online Moderator

Bastian Pelka, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

## Rapporteur

Clemens Gruber, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

## Participant Benefits

What will participants gain from attending this session?

## SDGs

4.5
8.5
9.c
10.2
10.3
16.7
16.b