Internet governance means the system of institutions and processes that govern, coordinate and sustain discussion and decisions on matters of importance to the underlying technologies of the internet, a global network of networks.
2025 will be a critical year for internet governance. Decisions made in United Nations processes will determine whether the collaborative, inclusive multi-stakeholder decision-making approach to shaping the internet’s future will continue, or be replaced by increased national legislation by Governments and inter-governmental decision-making.
auDA is a key voice for Australia in shaping the multistakeholder collaboration, consensus-building and decision-making internet governance system, alongside the Australian government and the broader Australian internet community. In 2024, we had a significant impact through our Internet Governance Roadmap (more on this below) and we will continue this work in 2025.
Our goal remains unchanged – to protect and strengthen multi-stakeholder decision-making and discussions that are the foundation of the free, open secure and global internet we all rely on every day. Multi-stakeholder collaboration, consensus-building and decision-making is the best approach to ensure the internet evolves in ways that meet the needs of all, and remains the reliable and robust infrastructure it is today.
Some of our key areas of focus in 2025 include:
- The World Summit on the Information Society twenty-year review (WSIS+20) of a United Nations (UN) process aimed at building a people-centric, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society where everyone can create, access, utilise and share information. The WSIS+20 is an opportunity to assess progress over the past 20 years. It will conclude with UN decisions in December 2025 about its future, including the future of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). We will work with both government and non-government stakeholders to shape the review so its conclusions support multi-stakeholder collaboration, consensus-building and decision-making.
- An important way we will contribute to WSIS+20 is to continue to work with peers around the world through the Technical Community Coalition for Multistakeholderism (TCCM) consisting of top level domain registries, domain name registrars, regional Internet-address registries and regional ccTLD organisations, co-founded by auDA in 2024. Throughout 2024, TCCM members developed shared positions and made written and verbal contributions to other UN digital policy processes advocating the value of multi-stakeholder participation in internet governance decision-making.
- We will propose sessions and lead discussions at the global IGF in June, the final IGF under the current United Nations mandate (to be renewed in WSIS+20). The intended outcome of this work is to support more visibility of Australian positions, and sharing practical suggestions on improving how the IGF works.
- Continue our support and engagement in regional gatherings including the Asia Pacific Regional IGF (APrIGF) and the Pacific IGF (PacIGF) to share Australian perspectives, learn from our regional colleagues and to pursue the improvement and reform agenda embedded in our Roadmap.
- Commence our second year as Secretariat for the Australian Internet Governance Forum (auIGF), formerly NetThing, due to be held in the last quarter of 2025. With auDA’s support, the auIGF created an innovative Position Paper in 2024, which was warmly received by the community. We look forward to supporting the Forum’s continued growth and development this year.
- Organising a second edition of the Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy (APIGA) Australia event, an internet governance academy inspired by APIGA in South Korea. The first event was a significant contribution to mobilising a new group of young people to get up to speed with internet governance.
Our ongoing work at local, regional and international forums shaping the internet continues alongside these areas of focus. Be it at ICANN, APTLD, CENTR or beyond, auDA is making a difference in internet policy dialogues.
Underpinning many of these initiatives is auDA’s Internet Governance Roadmap. Launched in August 2023, the Roadmap sets out an agenda for suggested improvements to multi-stakeholder internet governance.
At that time, we articulated the importance of the 2023-2025 period for internet governance, given several United Nations processes under way during that time could change the nature of global internet governance.
In roughly eighteen months since its release, we have been pleased to see two key initiatives that drew on the Roadmap:
- Our call to evolve the principles of the original 2014 NETmundial statement and relevant principles, enlivened debate and lent support to Brazil to hold NETmundial+10, in April 2024. This event gave the multi-stakeholder internet community the opportunity to reiterate and refine the principles that should shape the internet governance system. The event also created the Sao Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines for multi-stakeholder collaboration, consensus-building and decision-making – an important new community resource that steps out how to make internet governance and digital policy processes properly multi-stakeholder in nature.
- Our call for stronger technical community collaboration inspired the foundation of a Technical Community Coalition for Multistakeholderism (TCCM) as described above. The TCCM has made its mark, and a key success was our collaborative effort in fending off attempts to undermine multi-stakeholder collaboration, consensus-building and decision-making during the recent Global Digital Compact negotiations.
We are pleased the Roadmap has prompted debate and provided a springboard for action and genuine change, while enhancing our ability to shape the future of internet governance at the regional and global level.
You can find more about our progress in our Internet Governance Roadmap 2025 Progress Report, alongside the challenges we see ahead for both auDA and the broader internet community.
We are committed to protecting and improving multi-stakeholder decision-making institutions, while simultaneously encouraging the evolution of multi-stakeholder dialogue forums to meaningfully contribute to decisions driving internet-related public policy.
To find out more about auDA’s Internet Governance Roadmap and work, visit the auDA website.