This website was used as the information sharing portal of the WSIS Civil Society Bureau (CSB) from PrepCom-3 of Phase II and until the Tunis Summit.
The future of a CS structure within the WSIS follow-up and implementation process is at this time still in discussion and therefore the content of this website has been de facto frozen since November 2005.

For reasons of convenience, the only pages of this website which is still regularly updated are
the post WSIS calendar of events: http://www.csbureau.info/posttunis.htm
and the background information on ECOSOC status for WSIS-accredited entities: http://www.csbureau.info/ecosocstatus.htm

The WSIS Civil Society Bureau

A significant number of NGOs and civil society entities participated in the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), 16-18 November 2005 in Tunis. Throughout the process, civil society participants have organized themselves in order to facilitate a better participation of the global NGO community.

The Civil Society Bureau (CSB) was one of the civil society structures that has emerged from the WSIS process. The CSB was the interface between civil society and the intergovernmental Bureau, the Executive Secretariat and other stakeholders on procedural issues. It did not concern itself with content related issues.

The CSB was comprised of various "families" seen to represent different constituencies within global civil society. Each family had an organizational focal point, whose role was to inform the family about updates regarding the evolution of the WSIS preparation and to facilitate inputs from various family members into the overall process.

At PrepCom-3, September 2003, the Civil Society Plenary adopted a provisional set of guidelines for the CS Bureau.

Civil society groups involved in WSIS issued a CS Statement on WSIS to evaluate the official outcomes and process:
Much more could have been achieved

About this website

The CSB website is maintained by the Conference of NGOs (CONGO). If you have any comments or questions in relation to the content of the site, please write us at wsis@ngocongo.org.