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. One of its chief aims was to bridge
the global digital divide separating rich countries from poor countries by
spreading access to the Internet 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 15–16 December in New York.[1]
In the last decades of the 20th century the new Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) was implemented, especially in the
developed countries. Using ICT changed the modern society in many ways
which is known as digital revolution, and therefore new opportunities and
threats had been raised. The world's leaders were hopeful to solve many
problems using ICT. At the same time they were concerned with digital
divide at an international level as well as at a national one which could
lead to shaping new classes of those who have access to ICT and those
who have not. [2]
In such circumstance, recognizing that these challenges and opportunities
require global discussion on the highest level, the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU), following a proposal by the government
of Tunisia during ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Minneapolis in 1998,
approved Resolution 73 to hold a World Summit on the Information
Society and put forward it to the United Nations.[2] 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.[2]
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 on information society
opportunities and challenges.[3] 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.[4]