The Implementation Gap: Who Delivers Global AI Governance?

​A closed-door roundtable during the high-level week of the eighty-first session of the United Nations General Assembly, convened by the Tech Diplomacy Global Institute with Mia AI and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

​In August 2025, resolution A/RES/79/325 established two mechanisms to carry forward the Global Digital Compact: the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence, and the Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance. The Global Dialogue held its first session in Geneva on 6 and 7 July 2026 and returns to New York in 2027. Every Member State now has a formal seat at the table.

​The capacity to use it is another matter. Most foreign ministries have no designated official responsible for technology policy, no channel to the companies building the systems under discussion, and no training pathway for the diplomats who will negotiate on their behalf. The constraint on implementation is not the absence of frameworks. It is the absence of people and institutions able to deliver them.

​This is the gap the Samarkand Declaration on Tech Diplomacy, adopted on 1 November 2025, was written to close. Its central commitment is that signatory States appoint Tech Ambassadors or equivalent senior tech diplomats and build national capacity in tech diplomacy. Implementation will be reviewed at the Tech Diplomacy Asia Symposium in Tashkent on 14 October 2026 and at the Tech Diplomacy Global Assembly in Paris on 11 December 2026.

​FORMAT

​Twenty participants, one table, Chatham House Rule. No press, no podium. High-level week is saturated with panels; what it lacks is unrecorded conversation among people who can act.

​Each participant speaks for two minutes to a single question: what does your institution most lack in order to implement what it has signed? An open discussion follows, from which three questions are carried into the Tashkent agenda.

​WHAT LEAVES THE ROOM

​A two-page chair's summary, non-attributed, recording what participating States identified as their binding constraints. Circulated to participants within one week and carried into the programme for 14 October.

​PRACTICAL

​Light lunch and refreshments are served.

​Registration is by approval and seats are limited. This session is not open to press.