The States of the International Partnership for Information and Democracy held their third annual Summit in Paris on November 10, 2023. Significant progress was made in building a democratic information space, just a few weeks away from a decisive year for democracy worldwide.
The Partnership for Information and Democracy, which brings together 52 states from around the world, held its third annual Summit on the margins of the Paris Peace Forum. Organized by France with the support of the Forum on Information and Democracy, the Partnership’s independent implementing body, the Summit brought together ministers and civil society figures such as Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
In their declaration, the Partnership states pledged to “strengthen their cooperation through the Partnership for Information and Democracy and the capacity of all signatory states to implement democratic guarantees in the information space”. They also pledged to work with the Forum on Information and Democracy to develop and implement these guarantees.
Moldova and Brazil join the Partnership for Information and Democracy
Brazil announced its signature to the PID last September. On the occasion of the Summit, Vice-Minister Carlos Márcio Cozendey and Secretary of State for Digital Joao Brant represented their strong commitment to the PID.
Moldova’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Nicu Popescu announced his country’s signature of the Partnership for Information and Democracy. For the Minister, the Partnership “represents an opportunity to defend our fundamental rights, including freedom of expression and opinion, as well as our values.”
Solutions to curb misinformation in times of conflict
Against the backdrop of the war in the Middle East, the Forum on Information and Democracy has published twenty priority recommendations to support peace by safeguarding the integrity of the information space in times of conflict. These recommendations have been addressed to all Partnership states and platforms.
They are based on the various regulatory frameworks published by the Forum since 2020: on the fight against infodemics (2020); on the economic sustainability of journalism (2021); on the liability regime for social networks and their users (2022); on information pluralism (February 2023).
State support for the Observatory on Information and Democracy
Following the progress made on the creation of the Observatory on Information and Democracy, an equivalent of the IPCC for the information space, a number of governments have expressed their support for the project, which is supported by the IDF.
In these remarks, the Chair of the Observatory’s Steering Committee, Courtney Radsch, emphasized the need for an “ecosystemic approach” to combating misinformation, before summing up the Observatory’s mission: “We want to provide policymakers with evidence-based global assessments of what the research says in order to design better interventions.”
A coalition to feed the UN agenda
The Partnership states have also committed to “Support the efforts of the UN Secretary-General to develop a code of conduct for information integrity on digital platforms and the global digital compact, taking into account the principles of the Partnership for Information and Democracy.”
This commitment follows, in particular, a meeting organized by the Forum on Information and Democracy on the code of conduct with state representatives and Melissa Flemming, UN Under-Secretary-General, in September 2023.