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World Summit on the Information Society

The objective of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is to formulate a common vision and understanding of the global information society. It is expected to adopt a Declaration of Principles and an Action Plan to facilitate the effective growth of the Information Society and to help bridge the digital divide. It is also regarded as an effective means to assist the United Nations in fulfilling the goals of the Millennium Declaration. The Summit will be held in two phases: Geneva from December 10 to 12, 2003, and Tunis in 2005.

However, unless the International Community gathering at the Summit takes urgent action to ensure that gender equality and women’s rights are integrated into the WSIS process, outcomes and follow-up, there is a grave risk that the Summit will not have succeeded in its aim of creating a vision of the information society that contributes to human development.

UNIFEM is working to help ensure that WSIS includes women and women’s interests — particulary the interests of poor women who currently have little access to the benefits of ICTs. ICTs have the potential to help women increase their access to employment and entrepreneurship opportunities.

UNIFEM has supported the creation and the work of the WSIS Gender Caucus, which was established to ensure that gender equality and women’s rights are integrated into the WSIS and its outcome processes. UNIFEM staff are also participating in the main WSIS and Gender Caucus programmes as members of discusion panels and as presenters.

Read more about ...

» UNIFEM’s Work in information and communication technologies (ICTs)
» The WSIS Gender Caucus
» Web sites and other resources on women and ICTs