Democratic states are set to meet on 10 November on the margins of the Paris Peace Forum for the Third Summit of the Partnership for Information and Democracy. Ministers from member states of the Partnership join civil society figures, including Maria Ressa (Nobel Peace Prize 2021), to discuss the state of information integrity and the impact on our shared democratic values.
Currently with 51 state endorsements, the Partnership for Information and Democracy is an international process to ensure democratic guarantees in the global communication and information space.
As the world pays increasing attention to the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on our democratic institutions and violent conflicts fueled in part by the information chaos that surrounds us, the Summit will bring together Ministers from Partnership states and civil society representatives. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna will open the Summit followed by remarks from the chair of the Forum on Information and Democracy, Christophe Deloire, and 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa of the Philippines.
The Summit will showcase critical discussions on the importance of enabling peacebuilding efforts through ensuring information integrity in times of conflict and on measures to strengthen international cooperation around democratic oversight of the information space. The Forum on Information and Democracy, the civil society-led implementation entity of the Partnership, plans to release a Policy Brief outlining 10 recommendations for tech platforms and states to support peacebuilding through actions addressing information integrity.
“Discussions at Friday’s Summit of the Partnership on Information and Democracy will advance our mission of ensuring technology serves citizens and democracies, and not the other way around,” said the Forum on Information and Democracy’s Executive Director Michael Bąk. “As we all consume content about violent conflicts around the world, the Policy Brief we will launch at the Summit reminds platforms and states of responsible policies that must be implemented to ensure technology bolsters peace rather than exacerbating grievances and prolonging violence.”
The Summit expects to host Věra Jourová (Vice President of the European Commission), Nicu Popescu (Minister of Foreign Affairs of Moldova), Ana Ribeiro (Vice Minister of Education and Culture of Uruguay), Marie-Christine Saragosse (Director-General of France Médias Monde), João Brant (Secretary for Digital Policy of Brazil), Courtney Radsch (Director of the Center for Journalism and Liberty at the Open Market Institute; Steering Committee member for the Observatory on Information and Democracy), Elsa Pilichowski (Director of Public Governance and Communication at the OECD), among other dignitaries and civil society.
Participants will reaffirm support for this year’s launch of the International Observatory on Information and Democracy, housed within the Forum, and its strategic role becoming the IPCC of the information space. They will also take stock of the Policy Working Group on AI and the Information Space launched in September and the Declaration of Support on the Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI), a standards-based mechanism to promote reliable information online.
By gathering democracies together around concrete recommendations and solutions for implementing democratic safeguards in the digital space, the Summit enables better coordination of efforts to build a democratic digital space.