The World Summit on the Information Society set the UN’s digital agenda two decades ago, and the WSIS+20 review is where governments decided what that agenda should be for the next stretch. The Outcome Document reaffirms the WSIS action lines, extends the process, and ties it squarely to the Sustainable Development Goals, making it the reference text behind the 2026 WSIS Forum.
What it settles
The review renews the WSIS framework of action lines, the areas where technology meets development, from infrastructure and access to capacity building, the digital economy, and the ethical dimensions of the information society. It restates the multi-stakeholder model that has defined WSIS and connects the digital agenda to the 2030 Agenda and to the newer commitments in the Global Digital Compact. Read together, the two set the rules of the road for digital cooperation heading toward 2030.
Why it matters here
Digital access and data are where the SDGs are increasingly won or lost, in how services reach people and in whether progress can be measured at all. The Outcome Document is the mandate the WSIS Forum 2026 operates under, and it sits alongside the Global Digital Compact as the second pillar of the UN’s digital-governance framework that the July 2026 Geneva events build on.
Read it
- WSIS+20 Outcome Document, the official text (A/RES/80/173).
- WSIS Forum 2026 coverage, the event it frames.