Right place, time and people for Digital Cooperation Organization

Four years ago, I landed in Riyadh with two suitcases and a mission to help build a new multilateral organization.

The Digital Cooperation Organization was just 12 months old then, comprising just eight member states.

Looking back now, one can evaluate that mission through three lenses: place, time and people.

Riyadh, as the place, still carries stereotypes for many, yet it sits at the crossroads of north and south, east and west, tradition and transformation, sovereignty and interdependence, ambition and caution.

Saudi Arabia is often described as a still emerging multilateral actor, but this overlooks a long and sustained history of multilateral engagement.

The Kingdom is one of the few Arab countries who joined the UN as a founding member in 1945.

It has been an active participant across the UN system, including UNESCO (1946), the World Health Organization (1948), and the Bretton Woods institutions, joining the IMF and World Bank in 1957.

At the intergovernmental level, Saudi Arabia was a founding member of OPEC in 1960, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in 1969, and the GCC in 1981, with both the OIC and the GCC headquartered in the Kingdom.

It is key player in development and humanitarian efforts, notably through the Saudi Fund for Development established in 1974 and KSrelief, the Kingdom’s aid agency, created in 2015.

The Kingdom’s Official Development Assistance consistently meets or exceeds the UN target of 0.7 percent of gross national income, even reaching a record 1.9 percent in 2014.

In 2021, Saudi Arabia provided 5 percent of the world’s humanitarian aid.

In 2016, Vision 2030 provided a strategic framework linking domestic economic and social transformation with international cooperation and global sustainability agendas - making Riyadh the perfect home for DCO.

In terms of time: A mentor once explained the Greek concepts Chronos and Kairos, with the former referring to sequential, measurable time, the steady passage of hours, days and years through which traditional multilateral institutions usually evolve.

Meanwhile Kairos means the right or opportune moment, a qualitative time when conditions align and action becomes both possible and necessary.

The DCO founding members chose not to wait for Chronos, they instead acted on Kairos, recognizing a moment when digital transformation, geopolitical fragmentation, and widening development gaps demanded a new platform.

“Riyadh has taught me that multilateralism is about acting with intent, discipline and humility, in a timely manner.”

Hassan Nasser

Five years later, this intuition has proved prescient. The impact of technology has become profoundly transformational in recent years. Technology is reshaping economies, social fabric and international relations.

This revolution has accelerated the competitive dynamics inherited from the second half of the 20th century, carrying very real consequences for interdependence and competition across natural resources, energy, capitals and markets

The classical geopolitical landscape is now shaped by new stakeholders: multinational private actors whose grip over wealth, privacy, technical capabilities and ubiquity evokes science-fiction novels.

By establishing the DCO as a treaty-based international organization, the founding member states recognized that inclusive, resilient and sustainable development in the digital age cannot be achieved through isolated national responses.

Without multilateral, multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral cooperation, it would be impossible to harness the benefits of digital transformation; and that it was the time where action was possible and necessary.

Considering people, it should be said that multilateralism starts with the member states who give substance to the DCO.

The host country absorbs the risk of something new, with successive annual presidencies — Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait — shaping the organization’s tone and strategic focus while prioritizing continuity.

A notable figure in this journey is founding Secretary-General Deemah AlYahya, who took the DCO from idea to functioning secretariat delivering impact, leading with humility, vision and grace.

This February, the DCO concluded its fifth General Assembly, convening the now 16 member states, delegations from 20-plus guest countries, and 60 observers and partners, to explore solutions to foster digital cooperation.

The scale of participation was an overwhelming confirmation of the relevance of the DCO agenda.

Looking ahead, challenges remain. Governance is harder in a polarized world. Digital transformation moves faster than diplomacy. Trust is fragile and expectations are high.

Building an organization that is both inclusive and effective is a daily effort which requires more than just a mission statement.

Riyadh has taught me that multilateralism is about acting with intent, discipline and humility, in a timely manner.

Ultimately this is about people: committed individuals, working for the secretariat, the member states, and the partners, willing to try, testing new approaches and refusing to stay still.

I am convinced that Riyadh sends a signal for those willing to listen or indeed dare to keep up with the pace of a changing world.

• Hassan Nasser is the Special Envoy for Multilateral Affairs at the Digital Cooperation Organization