The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was a two-phase United Nations-sponsored summit on information, communication and, in broad terms, the information society that took place in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis. Aa part of stock-taking initiatives, WSIS Forums have taken place periodically since the initial conferences. One of the Summit's chief aims is to bridge the global digital divide separating rich countries from poor countries by increasing internet accessibility in the developing world. The conferences established 17 May as World Information Society Day. The WSIS+10 Process marked the ten-year milestone since the 2005 Summit. In 2015, the stocktaking process culminated with a High-Level meeting of the UN General Assembly on 15 and 16 December in New York. The United Nations General Assembly concluded the WSIS+20 review in December 2025.
Background In the last decades of the 20th century, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has changed modern society in many ways. This is often referred to as the digital revolution, and along with it have come new opportunities and threats. Many world leaders hope to use ICT to solve societal problems; yet, at the same time, there are concerns about the digital divide at international and domestic levels and specifically divisions between those who have access to ICT and those who do not.
Recognizing that these challenges and opportunities require global discussion on the highest level, the government of Tunisia made a proposal at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference in Minneapolis in 1998 to hold a World Summit on the Information Society. This resolution was then put forward it to the United Nations. In 2001, the ITU Council decided to hold the Summit in two phases, the first from 10 to 12 December 2003, in Geneva, and the second from 16 to 18 November 2005 in Tunis. On 21 December 2001, the United Nations General Assembly by approving Resolution 56/183 endorsed the holding of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to discuss information society opportunities and challenges. According to this resolution, the General Assembly related the Summit to the United Nations Millennium Declaration to implement ICT to facilitate achieving Millennium Development Goals. It also emphasized on the multi-stakeholder approach to use all stakeholders including civil society and private sector beside the governments. The resolution gave ITU the leading managerial role to organize the event in cooperation with other UN bodies as well as the other international organizations and the host countries and recommended that preparations for the Summit take place through an open-ended intergovernmental Preparatory Committee - or PrepCom - that would define the agenda of the Summit, decide on the modalities of the participation of other stakeholders, and finalize both the draft Declaration of Principles and the draft Plan of Action. A number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), scientific institutions, community media and others participated in preparations for the summit as well as the event itself, drawing attention to human rights, people-centered development, freedom of speech and press freedom. In Germany, a WSIS working group initiated by the Network New Media and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, has been meeting continuously since mid-2002. In Pakistan, PAK Education Society/Pakistan Development Network created Pakistan Knowledge Economy or Information Society. It promotes ICT in Pakistan and was the only Pakistani NGO who participated in UN World Summit on Information Society, Geneva.
Geneva Summit, 2003 Delegates from 175 countries took part in the first phase of WSIS at Geneva in 2003, where they adopted a Declaration of Principles. This document is a roadmap for achieving an information society accessible to all and based on shared knowledge. A Plan of Action was developed, setting out a goal of bringing 50 percent of the world's population online by 2015. It did not include specifics of how this might be achieved. Civil Society delegates from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) produced a document called "Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs" that brought together a wide range of issues under a human rights and communication rights umbrella. The Geneva summit also left unresolved more controversial issues including the question of Internet governance and funding. When the 2003 summit failed to agree on the future of Internet governance, the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) was formed to come up with ideas on how to progress.
WSIS Action Lines The WSIS Action Lines set out by the Geneva Plan of Action are as follows:
C1. The role of public governance authorities and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development C2. Information and communication infrastructure C3. Access to information and knowledge C4. Capacity building C5. Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs C6. Enabling environment C7. ICT Applications: E-government E-business E-learning E-health E-employment E-environment E-agriculture E-science C8. Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content C9. Media C10. Ethical dimensions of the Information Society C11. International and regional cooperation
Digital divide and WSIS
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