The civil society subdivided itself into several “families”, the Education family being one of the most important of all. ICDE is representative for distance education and educational technology in that family.

The Tunis WSIS, like the one from Geneva, was prepared in 3 successive high level meetings called PrepCom, in which representatives of the stakeholders meet. The first one took place in Hammamet (Tunisia) where 113 NGOs were represented. The second PrepCom was held from 17 to 25 February 2005 in Geneva; and the third one in September in Tunis. ICDE was present in all of them, by Dr. Loing.

 Tunis Phase: 16-18 November 2005

The objective of the second phase was to put Geneva's Plan of Action into motion as well as to find solutions and reach agreements in the fields of Internet governance, financing mechanisms, and follow-up and implementation of the Geneva and Tunis documents.

Nearly 50 Heads of state/government and Vice-Presidents and 197 Ministers, Vice Ministers and Deputy Ministers from 174 countries as well as high-level representatives from international organizations, private sector, and civil society attended the Tunis Phase of WSIS and gave political support to the Tunis Commitment and Tunis Agenda for the Information Society that were adopted on 18 November 2005. More than 19,000 participants from 174 countries attended the Summit and related events. Dr. Loing represented ICDE at the Summit.

·         Full texts of the Tunis Commitment and Tunis Agenda for the Information Society

·         More on the second phase of WSIS

12 December 2005