GIOR Participates in the 2022 OECD Global Forum on Democracy

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) would like to thank the OECD for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in the 2022 OECD Glob­al Forum on Build­ing Trust and Rein­forc­ing Democ­ra­cy, held on Novem­ber 17, 2022, in Lux­em­burg. Accord­ing to the event web­site:

The Glob­al Forum allowed par­tic­i­pants to col­lec­tive­ly explore an action-ori­ent­ed agen­da to rebuild trust in pub­lic insti­tu­tions and dis­cuss the key pub­lic gov­er­nance chal­lenges for democracy.

Read the rest here.

The Organ­i­sa­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co-oper­a­tion and Devel­op­ment (OECD) is an inter­gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion with 38 mem­ber coun­tries, found­ed in 1961 to stim­u­late eco­nom­ic progress and world trade.

The con­fer­ence brought togeth­er min­is­ters and high-lev­el rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 38 OECD coun­tries, the Euro­pean Union, as well as OECD acces­sion can­di­date coun­tries such as Ukraine. Pan­elists also includ­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from lead­ing tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies, think tanks, and human rights orga­ni­za­tions such as Meta, Carnegie Endow­ment for Inter­na­tion­al Peace, and Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al. Dis­cus­sion top­ics cen­tered around improv­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion in pub­lic life, com­bat­ing mis- and dis­in­for­ma­tion, and the trans­for­ma­tion of pub­lic gov­er­nance for dig­i­tal democ­ra­cy. One cen­tral focus of the event was the chal­lenge to democ­ra­cy posed by the Russ­ian inva­sion of Ukraine, on which the Ukrain­ian Min­is­ter of the Cab­i­net of Min­is­ters, Oleh Nem­chi­nov, spoke at length.

Cre­at­ed to mon­i­tor the activ­i­ties of var­i­ous influ­ence oper­a­tions world­wide, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tion Report (GIOR) close­ly fol­lowed dis­cus­sions on strate­gies against undue influ­ence and dis­in­for­ma­tion. An exten­sive paper pub­lished by the OECD Pub­lic Gov­er­nance Direc­torate as part of the event high­light­ed the urgency and impor­tance of coun­ter­act­ing such threats:

Efforts can­not be lim­it­ed to the nation­al lev­el, as mis- and dis­in­for­ma­tion tran­scend ter­ri­to­r­i­al bound­aries, nor can they be lim­it­ed to gov­er­nance respons­es alone. Cur­rent and pro­posed ini­tia­tives must reflect the inter­dis­ci­pli­nary and sys­temic chal­lenges faced and be devel­oped and imple­ment­ed in part­ner­ship with media and civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions focused on a wide range of issues, includ­ing legal and human rights, cyber secu­ri­ty and pri­va­cy, com­pe­ti­tion, for­eign inter­fer­ence, etc.

GIOR con­sid­ers the rise of state-spon­sored and transna­tion­al influ­ence a pro­found threat fac­ing the West as it seeks to counter the flood of dis­in­for­ma­tion that makes ratio­nal dis­cus­sion of pub­lic pol­i­cy increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult, if not impos­si­ble. There are scores of pub­li­ca­tions report­ing on influ­ence oper­a­tions, but none which cov­er the sub­ject dai­ly, and none with the scope of the GIOR, which also includes transna­tion­al Islamist net­works such as the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. The GIOR also appears to be the only exist­ing resource pro­vid­ing dai­ly intel­li­gence on the ties of Rus­sia to the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA), an inter­na­tion­al net­work cen­tered on nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, and oppo­si­tion to glob­al institutions.