Changes

==Background==

==Background==

The idea of holding a UN Summit on the Information Society had been floating in diplomatic circles already for some time in the late 1990s. UNESCO was thinking about holding such a Summit, but the political situation at UNESCO (in political conflict with the USA) was not conducive for such a proposal. In 1998, Tunisia initiated the idea of conducting a World Summit on the Information Society at the [[ITU|International Telecommunications Union]] (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference of Minneapolis. While the first tunisian draft of the resolution was talking about an information technology Summit (clearly an ITU theme), the final draft adopted by ITU as Resolution 73 of the Minneapolis Plenipotentiary Conference went beyond mere technology and spoke about the Information Society as a whole (which meant a UN Summit going beyond the boundaries of ITU and involving the UN system as a whole). In 1999, the United Nations Secretary General expressed enormous support to the proposed Summit and the UN General Assembly created the framework for the Summit under Resolution 56/183. UN General Assembly Resolution 56/183 adopted the idea of a Summit in two phases (a novelty for UN Summits, due to the fact that two countries, Tunisia and Switzerland, offered to hold the Summit) and also defined the role of ITU as the lead agency for the Summit in cooperation with all other interested organizations and partners of the UN System. By 2001, ITU started the preparations for holding the WSIS (with 3 PrepComs each for the Geneva and the Tunis phase). The first phase of the Summit was held in Geneva on December 10-12, 2003 and the second phase in Tunis on November 16-18, 2005.<ref>[http://www.itu.int/wsis/basic/background.html WSIS Background and Origins]</ref>

The idea of holding a UN Summit on the Information Society had been floating in diplomatic circles already for some time in the late 1990s. UNESCO was thinking about holding such a Summit, but the political situation at UNESCO (in political conflict with the USA) was not conducive for such a proposal. In 1998, Tunisia initiated the idea of conducting a World Summit on the Information Society at the [[ITU|International Telecommunications Union]] (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference of Minneapolis. While the first tunisian draft of the resolution was talking about an information technology Summit (clearly an ITU theme), the final draft adopted by ITU as Resolution 73 of the Minneapolis Plenipotentiary Conference went beyond mere technology and spoke about the Information Society as a whole (which meant a UN Summit going beyond the boundaries of ITU and involving the UN system as a whole). In 1999, the United Nations Secretary General expressed enormous support to the proposed Summit and in early 2002 the UN General Assembly created the framework for the Summit under Resolution 56/183. UN General Assembly Resolution 56/183 adopted the idea of a Summit in two phases. The two phases were a novelty for UN Summits. The main reason was that two countries, Tunisia and Switzerland, offered to hold the Summit, Tunisia as it had initiated the idea of the Summit at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference of Minneapolis and Switzerland because it is the host country of ITU since 1865. Resolution 56/183 also defined the role of ITU as the lead agency for the Summit in cooperation with all other interested organizations and partners of the UN System. By 2001, ITU started the preparations for holding the WSIS (with 3 PrepComs each for the Geneva and the Tunis phase). The first phase of the Summit was held in Geneva on December 10-12, 2003 and the second phase in Tunis on November 16-18, 2005.<ref>[http://www.itu.int/wsis/basic/background.html WSIS Background and Origins]</ref>

==High-Level Summit Organizing Committee==

==High-Level Summit Organizing Committee==