Internet Governance Forum on 1 December – The Day at a Glance

Best Practice Forum on Cybersecurity

The Best Practice Forum on Cybersecurity updated IGF2022 participants on cybersecurity norms and agreements that currently exist globally. Two new agreements have been introduced since 2021, namely the Copenhagen Pledge on Tech for Democracy and A Declaration for the Future of the Internet. These new additions bring the total to 38 international agreements between or among stakeholders, including voluntary, nonbinding cybersecurity norms.  Aside from general cooperation norms, the most common elements in these agreements include protecting human rights and democracy and countering disinformation and influence operations. 

An emerging priority issue is combatting ransomware, considered to be one of the most dangerous national security threats by Governments worldwide. John Hering, Senior Government Affairs Manager for Digital Diplomacy at Microsoft, emphasized that improving “cyber hygiene” is one of the most basic actions governments, corporations and other organizations can take to protect their systems from cyberattacks. For example, adopting multi-factor authentication across systems reduce the likelihood  for attackers to intrude.

A key feature of the best practice forum held today was Storybanking, where the presenters investigated a specific cybersecurity event, in this case, Log4j, to gain insights about whether or not norms have had an effect in mitigating the attack or where norms development would have benefited from their input.

Global AI Governance for Sustainable Development

Artificial intelligence (AI) possesses immense potential for fostering economic growth and environmental sustainability and accelerating the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.  Recent studies pointed out that AI has the potential to help achieve more than 70% of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, while promising prosperity, AI and other advanced digital technologies present risks of growing unemployment, underemployment and inequality, and raise new ethical and moral challenges such as replication of social biases and discriminatory algorithms.

Today’s Workshop on Global AI Governance for Sustainable Development presented participants with the linkages between AI and sustainable development, in particular, how advanced digital technologies impact SDG 8 on decent work, SDG 9 on industry, innovation and infrastructure, SDG 10 on reduced inequalities, SDG 12 on sustainable consumption and production and SDG 13 on climate.

The fundamental challenge on AI governance is the lack of data, especially from the Global South, that is needed to provide important inputs into the process of improving machine learning and AI. Where data is present, there is also a risk of data bias. Multi-stakeholder cooperation is needed to set governance standards and ethical boundaries that are inclusive, non-discriminatory, auditable and rooted in human rights.

Photo credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías

On 29 November, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) presented the outcome of the research on Cybersecurity for Development in the 4th Industrial Revolution. 
 
Led by the ECA Digital Centre, the research indicated a positive relationship between cybersecurity and development. A 10% increase in cybersecurity maturity yields between 0.66% and 5.4% increase in per capita GDP. The research further showed that cybersecurity correlates with Internet Penetration in Africa at 93% such that a 10% increase in Internet Penetration yield between 1% and 8% increase in GDP per capita. The report also showed that the higher a nation’s cybersecurity maturity the lower the cyber financial loss per capita.

• Main Session: Addressing Advanced Technologies, Including AI (11:15 am EAT)
• Best Practices Forum: Gender and Digital Rights (1:45 pm EAT)
• Open Mic Taking Stock (4:15 pm EAT)
• Closing Ceremony (5:30 pm EAT)