Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka faced similar challenges between 2022 and 2025, partly arising from the lack of effective and human-rights-friendly governance mechanisms for digital platforms.

In response, and with the aim of putting forward recommendations aligned with the UNESCO Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms, three media studies departments from these countries jointly prepared two toolkits to help translate the UNESCO Guidelines into practice: A Toolkit for Civil Society on Digital Governance and A Toolkit for Regulators on Digital Platforms Governance. The two toolkits were developed through legal reviews, rounds of discussions and consultations across the three countries, and national workshops. Both toolkits have been translated into four major languages of the subregion—Bangla, Nepali, Sinhala, and Tamil—to facilitate wider accessibility and use.