British football expert Mark Langdon made this comment in the 22 June episode of The Guardian Football Weekly podcast, reviewing matches earlier on in the FIFA World Cup 2026.

Dubbed “the most digitally connected World Cup ever,” FIFA 2026 was brought to audiences through AI-powered highlights, real-time data visualisations, and video streaming.  I asked my go-to LLM (large language model) to apply social listening tools for a sentiment analysis of African social media chatter about Bafana Bafana’s [the South Africa national team] participation in the World Cup.

The result: “deeply divided” feelings, with historic solidarity overshadowed by a significant backlash driven by regional tensions. “South Africa’s 2-0 opening loss to Mexico became a major ‘hate-watch’ event, driven by several factors,” most importantly, xenophobic violence and treatment of African migrants in South Africa.

The LLM results further indicated strong initial pan-African solidarity for Morocco, followed swiftly by social media backlash after a controversial statement claimed to have been made by Morocco’s Sports Minister was circulated online. The backlash over the fabricated quote was compounded by “political friction, including disputes over Western Sahara and allegations of anti-Black racism.”

Conversations on the street in Nairobi and on social media recalled an incident from last year’s Africa Cup of Nations tournament. Africans had not forgotten the “Towel Gate” grudge where a Moroccan player snatched a Senegalese player’s towel.

Finally, in the deciding last match, Africans overwhelmingly favoured Spain over Argentina, 88%, according to a poll by the Spanish sports daily Marca. African support for Spain was fuelled by “a mix of sporting grievances, politics, and social justice concerns.”

Growing up in Kenya with the Saturday evening TV show Football Made in Germany made fans out of us. [The football league] Bundesliga, [football team] Bayern Munich, and [star goalkeeper Harald] Schumacher were household names. Simple, benign, good fun that brought families with a television set together.

Fast forward several decades later to the FIFA World Cup 2026. “The beautiful game” evolved into a complex spectre somewhere along the way. The lenses through which the game is viewed are layered with factors that have nothing to do with purely football. In FIFA 2026, the conditions to observe the interplay between digital connectedness and the politics of sports and identity, were in place.

Rather than passion for the game itself, politics, race, and perceptions about justice mattered more on the continent. A contagion of outrage informed by past and present events spread in borderless online communities, flowing parallel to the real-time streaming of the game. Reactions on social media encouraged copycat responses.

Africa remains the underdog in world professional football, in other sectors, and more ways than could be counted. In this World Cup however, we took home an invisible trophy.

The inaugural Global Dialogue on AI Governance marked the first time, as speakers noted, that every UN Member State had a seat at the table to discuss artificial intelligence opportunities and risks; bridging AI divides; ensuring AI is safe, secure and trustworthy; and protecting human rights.

António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General, struck a somber note in his opening address. Calling artificial intelligence “an experiment…being run on our own societies – without a plan, and without consent,” he issued three warnings: its speed, which outstrips our institutions’ ability to govern; its power, “concentrated in a handful of companies, and in a handful of countries”; and truth:

A machine-enabled lie can now persuade as effectively as the truth – and authentic evidence can be dismissed as fake.
Further eroding the integrity of our information ecosystem and undermining trust.
A society that cannot agree on what is real cannot defend itself.

The preliminary report of the International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence was also released – a must-read for anyone wanting to understand “the state of AI”.

As Panel co-chair Maria Ressa explained, the report reflects consensus among its 40 independent members, based on the evidence. “Consensus,” she said, “means you move to the centre.” So, she added, “This is the floor of our concern, not the ceiling. And that is alarming enough.”

The report points to major gains in science, health, and education – alongside serious risks to information integrity, growing vulnerability, and increased abuse, especially against women, girls, journalists, and marginalized populations.

The two days were filled with speeches, many alternating state representatives with civil society voices. But “dialogue” – especially with those who hold power – seemed non-existent at this initial stage.

The Global Dialogue overlapped with the increasingly high-profile AI for Good Global Summit – a technology expo with staged areas for companies and organizations to showcase products and services or pitch problems that need solving. A sign of its growing popularity: for the first year it charged admission for most attendees, with a premium fee for the “Centre Stage” sessions.

Alongside impressive demonstrations of technology improving accessibility and scientific research, it was clear we remain captivated by humanoid robots – and that the allure of what we could do still overshadows what we should do. Its popularity and the claim of its organizers (International Telecommunications Union-ITU in partnership with other UN agencies, with the Swiss Government as co-convener) that it is “the United Nations’ leading platform on Artificial Intelligence” raises real questions about how it relates to – and where it is steering – the Global Dialogue.

The third event has had a longer, more inclusive history. The vision of the World Summit on the Information Society calls for a “people-centred, inclusive, and development-oriented Information Society,” and for over 20 years it has served as the primary multistakeholder forum for implementing communication and digital commitments. This is where community networks, human rights organizations, regulators, and private sector providers share sessions and plenaries – albeit alongside high-profile State sponsors.

No doubt because Geneva’s main conference centre, Palexpo, was fully booked by the Global Dialogue and AI for Good, the first two days of the 2026 WSIS Forum were held at ITU headquarters, down a construction-strewn road. The low-key setup – magnified by a confusing warren of hallways and meeting rooms – gave the impression that WSIS was the poor relation of digital governance.

The setting improved once the Forum moved to Palexpo for the rest of the week, but compared to the three halls buzzing with people (and robots) at AI for Good, the atmosphere stayed muted.

While the WSIS vision remains unfulfilled, it is still the platform that addresses the entire information society, including the digital environment. The Global Dialogue was full of speeches calling for meaningful community involvement, respect for human rights, equal access, and transparency; it is the WSIS Forum where actual efforts at community and multistakeholder cooperation are demonstrated as models for further action. It is far from a perfect, all-purpose governance and financing platform – but it is the most inclusive in focus and participation.

There is yet another significant platform coming up in a different time and place – the United Nations Internet Governance Forum – to be held in December in Nairobi, Kenya. Its 2026 theme is “Governing the Internet in the Age of Intelligence: Our Shared Responsibility.” Its mandate, linked to the WSIS process, is to bring diverse stakeholders together to shape digital public policy across both public and private sectors.

As the WACC delegation navigated these three meetings last week – and looks ahead to the IGF – we are left wondering where the most effective action on digital justice will actually happen.

Each forum has a role, and each needs WACC’s advocacy on equity, participation, and accountability. But the links between best practice, multistakeholder dialogue, public policy, and sustainable development have not yet been forged, and the still largely unregulated development of AI raises a hard question: which forum, or combination of forums, will have real impact?

Speaking at the WSIS Forum, Jennifer Chung, Chair of the IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group, directly addressed the need for coordination, collaboration, and cohesion among these four platforms – essential to implementing the Global Digital Compact and to the power of multistakeholder cooperation.

Digital justice is needed more than ever, and WACC is committed to making sure the voices and experiences of those advocating for equity, participation, and accountability are heard loud and clear in every one of these forums. But that takes all of us.

Follow these processes. Read the reports. Speak up when your national delegation takes its seat at the Global Dialogue, raise questions about community involvement in the latest AI tech, and share our stories of how technological solutions work for all at WSIS and the IGF.

Most importantly, take action where you are. Digital justice is not only decided in Geneva or Nairobi – it is built in the communities where access, literacy, and safety are still out of reach.

Support your local community media. Champion digital literacy where you live. Push back against disinformation in your own networks. The forums will keep meeting. Whether they deliver justice depends on what we do between them.

Images: (clockwise from top) participants at WSIS, ITU/Pierre Albouy; speaker at the Global Governance on AI, ITU/Antoine Tardy; AI for Good Summit, ITU/D Woldu. All photos on ITU’s Flickr profile, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. 

However, for many people watching, including die-hard fans at WACC’s general secretariat, it will be hard to escape the feeling that something essential about the game may have been lost along the way.

At its heart, football is perhaps the most democratic game humanity has invented. All it requires is a ball, a patch of ground, and a few friends. It is played in the streets of Montevideo, on the beaches of Accra, in the narrow alleys of Naples, and on the dusty lots of Kathmandu. It is a game of neighbourhoods: children play on the corner, neighbours gather to watch and share a drink, and rivalries form between barrios.

In this sense, football fosters something precious: belonging, shared meaning, a local social fabric, and healthy competition. For Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, whose book El fútbol a sol y sombra (Soccer in Sun and Shadow) is one of football’s greatest chronicles, the essence of the game was playing for the pure joy of playing, the way a child plays with a balloon. He even dedicated his book to children he once met coming home from a match, singing that whether they won or lost, they had fun all the same.

But Galeano also told the other story of the sport. He showed how football became “a sad journey from pleasure to duty” as the game became an industry where profit became central.

This year’s World Cup illustrates this point like no other tournament so far. For the first time, FIFA has introduced dynamic pricing, and tickets for the final were reselling through FIFA’s own system for around USD10,000, with prices going for much higher through informal reselling markets.  The pricing practices provoked such outrage that the attorneys general of New York and New Jersey even opened a joint investigation into the matter.

Also, this year’s tournament will also be a tournament marked by immigration enforcement, with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) having arrested at least 167,000 people in and around the 11 US host cities between January 2025 and March 2026, and more than 120 civil rights organizations issuing a travel advisory warning that fans, players, and journalists could face serious rights violations during matches in the United States.

From WACC’s perspective, the story of football holds up a mirror to the power dynamics surrounding today’s communication ecosystem. The late Michael Traber, a Swiss communication and journalism scholar and WACC laureate, argued that communication is inscribed in human nature. For him, language is the shared house in which we live and communication a human need “as basic as food, clothing and shelter.”

Traber was convinced that without communication, there is no community. There is no talking to your neighbour, no knowing what is happening in your town, no coming together around common ideas, no acting collectively to meet shared concerns.

In this regard, communication, like street football, is how social fabric gets woven, how belonging and meaning are made at the most local and human level. And, like football, communication has been hijacked by a commercial, for-profit logic.

Media systems that should bring people together and act in the public interest are now designed to capture our attention and sell it to advertisers. Digital platforms and their obscure algorithms reward outrage and polarization instead of promoting social cohesion and belonging. Much of today’s media landscape does not help communities build shared meaning from the ground up. Rather, it replicates power dynamics and turns the most human of processes into a machine for selling.

For WACC, the parallel with football is clear. In both cases, something that belongs to everyone has been captured, commodified, and sold back to us, and in forms that no longer build community.

However, neither story has to end this way. In his writings, Galeano recalled several moments of resistance to the dominant profit-driven model, like the famous case of the Brazilian club Corinthians, led by the mythical footballer Sócrates, that was run democratically by its players in the early 1980s.

Communication has its equivalent examples of resistance, like the hundreds of community radio stations, feminist communication collectives, and digital rights groups that WACC has spent decades supporting, and whose work is pivotal for democracy and social justice.

These experiences prove that another logic is possible, one where communication organized around community rather than profit, participation rather than consumption, and dialogue rather than confrontation becomes the norm.

Therefore, while we at WACC will be watching the World Cup, we will also try to remember that football belongs to the street much like communication belongs to the community. Recovering this grassroots, neighbourhood-based, profoundly human understanding of communication is critical not only for democracy but also for building a life that is worth living where we can all flourish.

We hope you will join us in reclaiming communication – and football for that matter! – as a common good.

Top image: (left) Children playing soccer in northern Ethiopia. Photo by Ericjohnsonvik/CC BY-SA 4.0. (right) A member of the Pickwe Ikh Indigenous community in Colombia during training in communication and free technologies. The Common School, hosted by WACC partner PAKKIRU, equipped communities to document the environmental and social impact that mining and similar activities have on their territories. Photo by PAKKIRU.

The message that Africa’s role in artificial intelligence is an investment agenda reverberated across fireside chats, workshop presentations and exhibits at the recent “AI Everything Kenya” conference with the tagline “Home to the Most Innovative AI, Cybersecurity & Tech Showcases in Africa.” The event attracted the type of participants it was designed for: venture capitalists, government delegates, and technology innovators. Civil society actors were far fewer. Concerns about digital rights, inclusion, equality, and ethics were expressed only occasionally.

Numerous conversations regarding AI are taking place, but seemingly with little, if any, convergence across them. One constellation of discussions revolves around trade, innovation, and investment. Another debates digital justice and human rights on the internet. AI is applied for noble purposes as much as for nefarious ones. There are drones that map crop disease, small language models that cater to African communities, and generative AI trained on African publications. At the same time, AI is used in lethal autonomous weapons and for domestic mass surveillance.

AI Everything Kenya was a masterclass on the technical aspects of AI: how to prepare to raise a financing round, how to integrate AI into security strategies, how to build AI-ready use cases aligned with International Telecommunications Union (ITU) standards in various domains. With the exception of a handful of sessions, the conference lost an opportunity to grapple with issues of rights, opportunities, and freedoms. “What does it mean to safeguard our humanity?” Pope Leo asks in his recent encyclical letter, Magnifica Humanitas: “The risk extends beyond misuse. […] The quality of a civilization is measured not by the power of its means, but by the care it is able to offer, by its ability to recognize the other as a face not merely as a function […]. Technology can also support this mutual care between people, for example, by providing tools that help us anticipate and organize things, without undermining human freedom and judgment.”

In The Great Transformation, political economist Karl Polanyi argues that the idea of a market disembedded from society was a utopia and as such, could not exist without annihilating the human and natural substance of society. A protective counter movement would emerge to prevent disaster and create stability. Extending Polanyi’s critique of market fundamentalism to the AI revolution, it could be argued that the current over-enthusiasm about AI is bound to create an AI ecosystem that is disembedded from the social. Pockets of dissent rise, but the free market persists despite the problems it has brought on.

Likewise with the AI revolution, the momentum is at an all-time high and is likely to be amplified despite the concerns that have been raised, including displacement of human labour, environmental costs, algorithmic bias, and AI-enabled violence against women and girls. As long as the siloed conversations continue, with industry in its corner and conscientious civil society in another, the risks to society and community will continue into the distant future.

Image generated by WACC using Canva Magic Studio

As highlighted in a recent statement by WACC North America, on March 14, Brendan Carr, Chair of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wrote a social media post on X, in response to President Trump’s complaint that media outlets were reporting negatively on his war efforts in Iran that, “broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions – also known as the fake news – have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.”

He further threatened that broadcasters are in danger of having their licenses revoked if they do not operate in the public interest, saying, “the law is clear.”

The WACC North America statement is strong and clear in defending the rights guaranteed in the First Amendment, and in the public interest of the media’s coverage of the war, stating: “A government that cannot be scrutinized in this way is neither of the people, nor for the people.”

The statement also notes that WACC has long documented the erosion of media freedom in authoritarian states and fragile democracies across the world. The tactics are numbingly familiar: regulatory pressure, licence threats, the weaponisation of “fake news” as a label to delegitimise unflattering coverage. What is new – and urgently alarming – is that these same tactics are now being deployed in Washington DC.

Media freedom is not a regional concern. It is the connective tissue of democratic life everywhere. When one nation normalises the use of regulatory bodies to intimidate journalists, it hands a playbook to governments around the world that were already looking for permission to do the same.

The United States has historically used its global influence to pressure other nations toward press freedom. If that influence is now exercised in the opposite direction, the consequences will be felt far beyond American borders.

The call from WACC-NA to affirm and protect constitutional press freedoms is not partisan – it is foundational. Across the political spectrum, across faiths and traditions, a free and independent press is one of the few institutions that serves everyone. The moment it becomes an instrument of state approval, it serves no one.

This is the moment for voices everywhere – faith communities, civil society, international bodies – to speak clearly.

The freedom of the press is under active, escalating threat. It demands an urgent, unified, and global response. Be vigilant wherever you are. Speak Out. Resist authoritarian pressures to censor the press. Defend and support media freedom in every way you can. 

Photo: Loredana Sangiuliano/Shutterstock

Both at the WSIS+20 High-Level Meeting in July in Geneva and in the negotiations involved in drafting the outcome document in the months since, WACC and its partners have emphasized the centrality of human rights in all aspects, and by all actors, of the Information Society.

With that in mind, there are some elements in the last published version of the draft document that civil society coalitions have welcomed.

The Global Digital Rights Coalition (GDRC), in their November 20 statement on Revision 1 WSIS+20, welcomed elements of the document which reaffirm “the value and principles of multistakeholder engagement,” anchor the WSIS in international human rights law and UN systems, uphold “the independence and diversity of media,” and clarify “the obligation of States and the responsibilities of the private sector to uphold human rights in all aspects of the governance of digital technologies.”

Just as clearly, though, much needs to be strengthened for a clear people-centric path forward. The GDRC continues to call for strengthened language and explicit references that would, among other things:

• Prohibit the use of digital technologies fundamentally incompatible with human rights.
• Emphasize the duty of the private sector to conduct human rights due diligence on their products.
• Restore language on the urgent need to counter and address all forms of violence.
• Strengthen references to information and democratic processes by referring explicitly to social media and AI-generated or manipulated content.
• Respect and protect human rights throughout the life cycle of AI systems.

Will the final approved document be strengthened or weakened in the end? Will adherence to human rights – not to mention environmental safeguards – be enshrined in the text and affirmed by member states, or will economic interests and political control win the arguments?

In either case, all of us in civil society will need to be prepared for the implementation of both the 2024 Global Digital Compact and the outcomes of WSIS+20. With privately driven technological advances far outstripping the ability of states to control, intense engagement is required of civil society in pressing for accountability, transparency, human rights, and economic and environmental justice.

In their response to the Zero Draft in October, the Global Digital Justice Forum stated:

“An optimistic approach can still be pragmatic but only if attentive to the unease and aspirations of those in the margins; those hopeful of a better digital tomorrow. This must first honestly acknowledge that a profit-centric technological revolution has failed to open up pathways for a people-led, inclusive, and development-oriented information society. This mainstream digital paradigm must be replaced by an alternative public technological paradigm that distributes the innovation dividends of the data and AI revolution.”

If we truly want a people-centred, inclusive, and development-oriented information society, we will need all our voices and actions to ensure it happens.

Photo: ITU/Pierre Albouy, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

However, as the infrastructure needed to support the growing artificial intelligence sector is built, the extractivist dimension of the digital is reaching new levels of complexity. On the one hand, there are the environmental implications of this infrastructure, which is creating water stress in places like Mexico, Chile, and Spain thanks to massive data centres, many of which emit enormous quantities of greenhouse gases. 

On the other hand, there is the economic impact. Most of these data centres are established without contributing in any meaningful way to local development. For instance, just this past week Open AI announced the construction of a US$25 billion mega data centre in the Patagonian region of Argentina. The announcement made no mention of whether the data centre “would create local employment, boost local industrial production, be based on environmental impact assessments, or include any Argentinian national oversight of strategic infrastructure,” says Natalia Zuazo in an article published last Friday in El Pais.

But what exactly do we mean by “extractivism”? Generally speaking, the concept of extractivism refers to an economic model that extracts value from regions thought of as “empty,” “barbaric,” or “primitive” and that are perceived to contain resources that are available for outsiders to exploit. Usually, this type of extraction generates next-to-no economic benefit for local communities, even if local elites enrich themselves quite significantly. Extractivism also tends to destroy natural ecosystems in its quest for revenue, create “serious social and health threats on the local populace,” and fuel local conflict between and among communities and private actors. This model is also highly dependent on international prices, leading to frequent boom and bust cycles that undermine long-term economic development. It is usually perpetuated by weak and corrupt institutions at the local, subnation, and national level and predatory, rent-seeking behaviour by local and national elites.

This definition seems to apply to the situation Argentina quite clearly, where a foreign multinational is seeking to benefit from the vast natural resources of the country without leaving much economic development behind and with few checks and balances. And the country’s government appears more interested in attracting foreign investment for its benefit and of the elites it represents than in establishing clear oversight mechanisms or in fostering sustainable local development.

In this context, WACC believes we need to take urgent action to address this issue. We believe states should work diligently to establish clear guidelines that protect natural ecosystems, set out clear national oversight mechanisms with real tools to enforce regulations, and mandate data centres to contribute to local and national development in the form of knowledge, technology, and financial benefits transfers. We also call on states to respect Indigenous rights, mainly obligations to ensure free, prior, and informed consent, when approving the constructions of data centre infrastructure.

Furthermore, and in line with “Water and energy nexus,” the July 2025 report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, WACC supports the notion that “[s]tates and international institutions should promote a moratorium on the development of data centres and provide clear information on their water and energy consumption and the risks that they pose to climate change, the sustainability of aquatic ecosystems, the human rights of impoverished populations and the survival of vulnerable productive sectors.” This moratorium should remain in place until these risks have been effectively mitigated.

WACC looks forward to being part of continued civil society pressure to ensure that the calls for a more equitable digital world eventually turn into reality. We encourage people, communities, and civil society organizations everywhere to join us in these efforts.

Image: © cnv-studio via Canva.com

In July, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) will have its 20-year review – grappling with the actions needed to address the opportunities and the abuses that have come with the digital transformation.

2025 is also the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action, the outcome of the Fourth World Conference on Women.

In Section J of this landmark document, “governments and other entities pledged to take specific actions to: (i) Increase the participation and access of women to expression and decision-making in and through the media and new technologies of communication, and, (ii) Promote a balanced and non-stereotyped portrayal of women in the media.”

On March 3, the Global Alliance on Media and Gender (GAMAG) released a stark statement:

“If the current status quo is left unchallenged, the likely outcomes are clear: 30 years after Beijing, progress towards gender equality will be reversed.”

We are in the midst of a perfect storm, an attack at political, economic and cultural levels that has decimated financial support for public interest and community media as well as super-charged the backlash against policies and practices that support equality and diversity.

When words and concepts about “gender” and “equality” are removed and even banned, we know we face an unprecedented challenge to strengthen our call for rights and justice.

The GAMAG statement calls on individuals, organizations and governments to:

1. Ensure that women-led civil society organizations have the resources and support they need to continue their work.
2. Resist the erasure of gender equality and equity language from public discourse and hold media accountable for perpetuating harmful stereotypes.
3. Defend media freedom and the rights of journalists, particularly women, to work without fear of retaliation.
4. Speak out against policies and decisions that threaten women’s rights and freedom of expression everywhere and across all media.

In such a time of upheaval, it is all the more important that we recommit to our principles of justice and human rights, that we stand together, and that we support each other. When this can happen, not only is progress not lost, but our hope for gender equality that brings benefits to all can continue to grow and one day be realized.

Join GAMAG’s Beijing+30 call to uphold commitments in Section J on “Women and the Media.” You can add your support to the statement as an individual or an organization. For safety and security reasons given the current climate, your name as a signatory will not be published, but the counts will be updated bi-weekly on www.gamag.net.

By bringing together UN member states with civil society, private sector and other stakeholders, one of the main messages the event wants to send is that effective, forward-looking solutions require multilateral consensus and collaboration.

As with most UN events, the hard work on outcomes was done in advance in the form of two main documents which will be adopted during the Summit. WACC has worked with partners to influence the text and direction of both.

The Pact for the Future aims to be the high-level political declaration that lays out the critical global challenges and a framework for action to meet them. It builds on existing UN processes including the report “Our Common Agenda” by the UN Secretary-General that called for the revitalization of global governance as well as the Sustainable Development Goals.

When the first draft of the Pact was released for comment, the Global Forum for Media and Development (GFMD), of which WACC is a member, noted immediately that despite international acknowledgement of the vital role public interest journalism has in peace and security, democratic governance, and sustainable development, there was no mention of media or journalism in the draft.

Together GFMD and its allies, along with other civil society partners, have provided written feedback, advocacy with government delegations and multilateral partners, and pressure via a joint statement signed by over 110 organizations around the world. This coalition has contributed to greater references to civil society, maintaining strong human rights language, and specific language to respecting and protecting journalists particularly in situations of armed conflict.

All parties acknowledge that not all that we have called for is in the Pact, but our collective, active advocacy has had an impact and strengthened these elements in the document.

The second outcome of the Summit of the Future, which is envisioned as an annex to the Pact for the Future, is the Global Digital Compact.

The Compact aims to outline shared principles for the use of digital technologies and a framework for digital governance. It aims to balance innovation and regulation, while respecting human rights and ethics, inclusion, and digital commons.

WACC, through GFMD and other partners, has pushed for a human-rights centred Compact that considers the media community as a key stakeholder. While no doubt the final version is not as robust as needed, the Global Digital Justice Forum – a group of civil society organizations and networks working on digital rights and justice – considers the multistakeholder approach to the Compact’s development a positive approach.

In a public communication, the Forum says: “The specific governance proposals in the [Global Digital Compact] – pertaining to Internet, data and AI governance – are aligned with the World Summit on the Information Society principles and plan of action; the only touchstone so far on global digital governance.”

In their statement on what is at stake for internet governance and human rights with the Compact, the Forum notes:

Undoubtedly, this GDC may not be the best we could get. At the same time, we believe that democratic digital governance requires international cooperation and the role of governments in a) mobilizing public investments for foundational public digital goods in all nations and b) moving steadily towards accountable global data and AI governance architectures—a critical agenda whose time is here—for pluralistic digital societies.

The Internet today is not what many who contributed to its development dreamed it would be. The status quo—with corporate self-interest leading the way—is untenable. It is disastrous for people and planet alike. As progressive civil society working to democratize the digital space—hand in hand with the innovators worldwide who hold the internet’s original promise dear—we seek nothing less than a radical departure from the democratic deficit that has come to characterize it.

The real test of this upcoming Summit is the implementation of the principles and actions that will be agreed. In this we all have a role to play in holding governments, private sector – and ourselves – to account and indeed, being part of a future for all.

Maybe we do need to take a page from the fictional superheroes, to understand that we do have power that has already strengthened parts of these documents.

And we can deploy the power of our coalitions and commitment to advocate and demonstrate that communication rights – respected, protected, and fulfilled – play a fundamental role in a sustainable, democratic, inclusive and equitable future.

Image generated by WACC using Canva Magic Studio.

Such is the case of Radio Stereo Ideal 98.9 FM, a community radio station based in Tena, in Ecuador’s Amazon region, that WACC visited recently in the context of our Voices of the Amazon project.

The Amazon rainforest is a major carbon sink, a vital source of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and a pivotal mechanism for local and global climate stability. However, multiple social and environmental challenges are contributing to degradation of the region that is bringing it to climate tipping points.

In Napo province, the area served by Radio Ideal, gold mining is one of these challenges. Its large-scale dredging of rivers, use of mercury to separate gold from sediment, and deforestation to make way for open pit mining have a devastating impact. Substances used for extraction have an adverse effect on water quality and fishing. Contamination of rivers also means they cannot be used for tourism, Napo’s main economic activity.

In the long term, this contributes to unemployment, poverty, and social tension as communities become split between those supporting gold mining and those opposing it. There are also many reports of state officials failing to uphold environmental regulations and judicial rulings against extraction due to bribes and threats from actors involved in mining, making the situation even more difficult to address.

Radio Ideal, in operation since 1993, is a central actor in holding local decision makers accountable and in helping to organize local civil society to challenge the activities that are destroying the rain forest.

The station has positioned itself as the only media outlet in Napo, an area with very limited internet connectivity, that provides a platform for local communities to express themselves. With a 600-watt transmitter, its broadcasting reaches most cities in the province, where 75 percent of the population is Indigenous, of the Kichwa nation. A quarter of the station’s programming is in the Kichwa language, and one of its two studios is owned by a local Kichwa community.

Radio Ideal’s motto? “The communities do not have to come to the radio station—the radio station must go to the communities.” Its broadcasters have been “in the trenches” covering local protests, visiting mining sites, and questioning the decisions of local officials.

It has also instated an open-door policy meaning that anyone whose vision aligns with that of the station—rooted in human rights and the protection of nature—is welcome to a space on the programming grid. This has led to multiple alliances: with Indigenous organizations, a network of community reporters, sustainable tourism leaders, environmental activists, local business owners, women’s groups, advocates for the rights of people with disabilities, and allied legislators and policy makers.

In other words, the station has contributed to a local ecosystem of support and advocacy in which it plays the role of connector, convener, and bridge builder.

This collaborative approach, with the radio station as a platform, has enabled the environmental movement in Napo to score some major wins: the suspension of an open pit mining license between 2020 and 2023, the removal of two corrupt provincial government officials from office, the appointment of members of the movement as provincial ombudsperson and their election to the national legislature.

These wins have sown the seeds of a political movement that hopes to one day convince local power to finally put an end to mining across Napo. Though mining, deforestation, and water pollution continue, the local environmental movement and the radio station have managed to articulate a different vision of development: one where people do not have to destroy their forests and rivers to meet their basic needs. And they are inviting local communities to a conversation about translating this vision to reality.

The work of this station is a good reminder that while many of the current efforts to address climate change, like energy transition and reforestation, are essential, we mustn’t ignore the role of communication, information, and media actors in turning the situation around. 

Democratic and inclusive media and information systems enable local actors to influence local policies in a positive way. They shed light on the local drivers that fuel environmental degradation. And they contribute to a social climate in which concerns for environmental issues can translate into genuine political will and meaningful action.

The solutions to climate change must be rooted in a clear understanding of local dynamics, including people’s livelihoods, local economies, and local power dynamics.

In WACC’s experience, it is impossible for locally relevant solutions to emerge without healthy and democratic local communication ecosystems that enable the most affected communities to be heard and to advance their own solutions.

Failing to pay attention to such communication issues risks condemning many of the policies currently being rolled out to failure. The work of actors such as Radio Ideal is vital not just for local communities in Tena but for all of us.

David Granja, director of Radio Ideal in Ecuador’s Amazon region. Photo: WACC

Learn about WACC’s support for grassroots organizations using communication rights to advance climate justice.