IGF 2025 Open Forum #60 Cooperating for digital resilience and prosperity

1. Background and Rationale

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, resilience and prosperity depend on inclusive, multilateral, and multi-sector collaboration. In February 2025, the DCO Council of Ministers representing 16 Member States across Africa, Asia, Europe, and Middle East, adopted the 4-Year Plan (2025-2028) and the Final Declaration tittle: "DCO Path for Digital Resilience and Social Prosperity". This session, led by the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO), will explore how governments, international organizations, businesses, and civil society can work together to advance the implementation of the United Nations Global Digital Compact (GDC)—ensuring an open, free, secure, and human-centered digital future for all. As a key advocate for networked multilateralism, the DCO is actively contributing to the implementation of the GDC objectives, including bridging digital divides, fostering responsible data governance, and promoting AI for the benefit of humanity. The session will highlight the Digital Economy Navigator (DEN)—an innovative tool designed to assess, prioritize, and design digital transformation across economies, enabling evidence-based policymaking and strategic investments. By showcasing successful cooperation models, actionable insights, and emerging digital solutions, this discussion will emphasize how coordinated global action can foster inclusive and sustainable economic growth and strengthen digital resilience in an era of transformative technologies. 

This roundtable will convene thought leaders from governments, the private sector, international organizations, academia, and civil society. It aims to explore practical mechanisms to foster digital cooperation in the context of universal connectivity, responsible digital governance, ethical AI, and inclusive digital prosperity. 

The side-event will also build on the Townhall on the Global Digital Compact co-hosted by DCO and the ODET (Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies) in Riyadh in the margins of IGF 2024, in December 2024.

2. Strategic Framing

In February 2025, the DCO Council of Ministers adopted its 4-Year Strategic Plan (2025–2028) and the Final Declaration titled “The DCO Path for Digital Resilience and Social Prosperity.” This roadmap reinforces DCO’s commitment to enabling inclusive digital transformation and empowering countries—especially those in the Global South—to design and implement evidence-based digital strategies.
As part of this commitment, the session will spotlight the Digital Economy Navigator (DEN)—a pioneering policy intelligence tool developed by DCO to assess digital maturity, inform national strategies, and guide investment decisions. The DEN supports countries in aligning their digital priorities with the SDGs and GDC commitments while enabling multistakeholder cooperation for shared value creation.

3. Proposed Agenda

4. Objectives

• Highlight core digital challenges and opportunities for GDC implementation.
• Outline the DCO’s multilateral cooperation model to accelerate digital resilience and prosperity in the next decade.
• Introduce the Digital Economy Navigator and other collaborative tools.
• Offer early lessons from regional and international engagements.

5. Expected Outcomes

• Practical cooperation pathways aligned with the GDC and DCO’s strategic framework.
• Recommendations for inclusive, data-driven policymaking and digital investment.
• Bridging gaps between policy, innovation, and ethical imperatives.
• Input into the GDC follow-up mechanisms and post-IGF dialogues. 
• Strengthened partnerships for inclusive, multistakeholder digital cooperation

6. Conclusion

In a world increasingly shaped by technological transformation, cooperative digital governance is not a luxury—it is a development imperative. Through this HLPF side event, the Digital Cooperation Organization aims to convene diverse voices to drive measurable, inclusive progress across the digital economy. DEN provides not only a framework for action, but a vision for equitable growth—where all countries, regardless of income or capacity, can chart a sovereign and inclusive digital future.