Dear All, Please find attached below the intervention of ICANN’s President and CEO Kurtis Lindqvist at the High Level WIS+20 Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, delivered on 17 December 2025. Best regards, Alexey Speech Content: Madam President of the General Assembly, Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues, and guests. It is my honor to speak on behalf of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, during this important and historic WSIS review. ICANN expresses its deep appreciation to the President of the General Assembly; the Co-facilitators and the Permanent Representatives of Albania and Kenya, Ambassador Janina and Ambassador Lokaale; their dedicated staff; UNDESA; and all UN agencies and stakeholders who contributed to a transparent, inclusive, and collaborative process. The addition of the Sounding Board meaningfully strengthened engagement across the community. We all know the long road that has brought us to this moment, so I will focus on why this work matters now. The Internet remains one of the most powerful engines for human progress. Today, more than 6 billion people are online, and entire communities and economies have grown in ways once unimaginable. At the same time, an estimated 2.2 billion people remain offline, and many more who are online still lack meaningful connectivity. Ensuring secure, stable, and reliable access for them is one of the defining development challenges of our time. The multistakeholder model of Internet governance is essential to meeting that challenge. The Internet’s growth and resilience rely on the shared responsibility of academia, civil society, governments, international organizations, the private sector, and the technical community. This cooperative model works. It is why the Internet remains unified, global, and resilient. Sustaining and strengthening this bottom-up, collaborative approach is critical to the future of global digital cooperation. The Internet Governance Forum is a cornerstone of that cooperation. The IGF is the world’s most inclusive space for digital dialogue, bringing every stakeholder to the table on equal terms. A permanent, well-resourced IGF is not a procedural matter. It is foundational to effective global cooperation and to ensuring that the Internet continues to serve all people, in all regions. ICANN supports this vision through its work on Universal Acceptance readiness and adoption and the coordination of Internationalized Domain Names, which expands access in several languages and scripts, and through capacity-building initiatives such as the Coalition for Digital Africa. Through the Governmental Advisory Committee of ICANN, member states bring essential governmental expertise into the multistakeholder model. ICANN also cooperates closely with the specialized UN agencies ITU, UNESCO and WIPO in delivering our mission. This collaboration reinforces trust in the Domain Name System and supports the stability of the Internet’s unique identifier systems. The Internet - anchored in this multi-stakeholder model - has delivered extraordinary benefits across the world. Continuing that progress requires sustained commitment to this collaborative model of governance. ICANN strongly supports the WSIS+20 Outcome Document and stands ready to deepen its collaboration with all stakeholders as we work to ensure that the Internet remains secure, stable, and truly global. Thank you.