(CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown, Guyana) CARICOM officials, representatives of Regional organisations and Regional universities will meet in Georgetown, Guyana on Wednesday, 12 January 2005 for the first CARICOM Regional Stakeholders meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

The WSIS Stakeholders Meeting is expected to receive and determine a strategic Regional response to activities leading up to WSIS, as the Region gears to participate in the World Summit slated for November 2005. A Draft CARICOM WSIS Action Plan will be tabled at the meeting, and it is anticipated that stakeholders will consider and approve the Plan towards the integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in development.

Other objectives of the Stakeholders Meeting include the formation of a CARICOM WSIS Working Group to spearhead the activities outlined in the Draft CARICOM WSIS Action Plan and the formation of teams to advance work on some of the relevant themes from the WSIS Plan of Action.

Wednesday's meeting is also expected to provide a forum for discussion and the exchange of information and experiences among Regional stakeholders, with regard to national and Regional WSIS activities.

At the 3rd Meeting of Regional Information Ministers held October 2004, Ministers adopted a Regional ICT Strategy and Agenda for Action. The upcoming Stakeholders meeting forms part of the mandate given by Ministers for the advancement of the use of ICTs across the various sectors in the Region and individual Member States.

In their bid to have broad-based CARICOM participation in the WSIS, Stakeholders will also focus on strategies for involving Private and Public Sector partnership and the effective involvement of Civil Society. The meeting is also expected to devise strategies for Information sharing and Management

The second phase of WSIS will take place in November 2005 in Tunisia, and is spearheaded by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The first phase of WSIS was held in Geneva, Switzerland in December 2003.

CONTACT:

Rose Blenman
EMAIL : rblenman@caricom.org

OR

Tecla Fontenard
teclaf@caricom.org