The World Summit on the Information Society was held in two phases, in Geneva in December 2003 and in Tunis in November 2005. Over 50 Heads of State and Government attended each of the two Summits and committed to building a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society.

This stocktaking process, initiated by the WSIS Executive Secretariat in October 2004 and launched in Tunis in 2005, provides an inventory of activities and tracks progress on the implementation of the goals of the Summit.

The Report was prepared through a consultative process with all stakeholders by placing the draft report for comments on the WSIS stocktaking website. The system is publicly accessible and presents information on WSIS-related initiatives and projects. See www.itu.int/wsis/stocktaking. It is possible to search for information within the database by WSIS action line, project, keyword, geographical location and other specifications.

Governments submitted 3812 activities, representing 54 per cent of the total number of submissions. International organizations were second, with 29 per cent, followed by businesses, civil society entities and others. Some 44 per cent of activities submitted had been carried out at the national level, while 30 per cent were of an international nature.

This report was issued during the annual WSIS follow up meetings which are held in a ten-day cluster of events in Geneva, Switzerland around World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, which marks the foundation of ITU on 17 May, 1865.

The Report on the WSIS Stocktaking 2008 is available free of charge at: www.itu.int/wsis/stocktaking