Tatiana Ershova, IIS General Director and head of PRIOR Directorate participated in the second PrepCom of the WSIS Tunis phase as a member of Russian delegation.

As the head of a non-govermental non-commercial organization she concentrated her attention on events organized by one of the most active stakeholders - Civil Society (CS), and events discussing CS-oriented issues. In particular, she participated at the meetings of CS Bureau and CS Plenary sessions on 21-22 February 2005, and meetings of WSIS Working Group on Working Methods on 21 and 22 February.

The main problems faced by CS in the course of WSIS are the following:

1. Introduction of amendments in WSIS documents on behalf of civil society is hindered by divergence of visions among different civil society organizations (CSOs). Arriving at agreement needs considerable time, which contradicts with the necessity to react promptly to any changes introduced in the key documents. Civil society is represented by organizations with big differences in their profile activity. Thus it finds itself in unfavorable situation as compared to representatives of other groups, for example, governments, which have more possibilities to efficiently develop a coherent position on any subject on national and even regional level and represent it at PrepCom or Summit. CS representatives raised an initiative to create an independent group of mediators which could in case of necessity help organize negotiation process to develop common position of the civil society promptly and efficiently. Membership of this group would involve people with professional diplomatic skills. This initiative was presented for consideration of the special Working Group on Working Methods established for improving process of preparation to WSIS.
2. CSOs participation in the work of preparatory committees and other summit events is obstructed by difficult process of their accreditation. Sometimes organizations fail to receive accreditation without being explained the reason. CS Bureau at PrepCom-2 called all organizations to firmly abide by the established accreditation procedure and its time limits, particularly referring to the second stage of WSIS in Tunis, since visa issuing procedure in Tunis is very strict. At the same time organizations directly relating to the Information Society that conduct real activity and follow the accreditation procedure accurately meet next to no problems. Meanwhile one of CS Bureau members was authorized to collect information on denials issued to CS organizations at PrepCom-2, analyze it and inform CS Bureau to perform adequate measures in case inadequate denials were issued.

On 21 February Tatiana Ershova actively participated as the head of Moscow Secretariat of UN ICT TF Regional Network for Europe and Central Asia hosted by PRIOR Directorate at the Institute of the Information Society, in open informal consultations related to the initiative of establishing Global Alliance for ICT Policy and Development, a would-be successor of UN ICT Task Force aimed at sustainable cooperation of all stakeholders in promoting ICT use for full-fledged development (see Minutes of the consultations and Note on issues for stakeholders consideration). This initiative is on the initial stage of development; web site of UN ICT Task Force has an online forum welcoming all interested stakeholders to make their comments.

On 23 February T. Ershova participated in presentation of Village Swiss ONG initiative on bridging the digital divide, which gave people from poor families in 17 African countries access to computers and Network. She also attended the Information Poverty Workshop, which presented project Borj Touil (WSIS Village-2005) from Tunis and forthcoming Fifth World Information P overty Conference (Milan - New-York, 12-13 May 2005).

As Chair of the Board of the Russian e-Development Foundation, also a CSO founded by IIS, T. Ershova visited a number of events within PrepCom-2, concerning financial mechanisms for ICT development. She stated that, in spite of an outstanding contribution to the 'financial' part of the main documents to be adopted at the Tunis Phase of WSIS, the issue of fostering development business as a tool to increase enterpreneurial activity and culture of the population, especially its disadvantaged groups, was practically not considered.

This problem is quite new, not duly discussed and unattractive from the point of view of traditional approaches to business and financial mechanisms, but its solution bears considerable possibilities for poverty reduction and increasing human and financial potential of the Information Society, since it presupposes increase in the level of economically active population by involving disadvantaged societies in business activity, including by active use of ICT. This is proved by outstanding innovative commercial socially-oriented projects, implemented at present in a number of countries. Among them there is a program for issuing micro-credits, initiated by Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and is widely known under the name "Village phone" - the Petersberg Prize winner (2004).

T. Ershova suggested to the head of the Russian delegation Dr. Yuri Grin that this issue be discussed in Russia before PrepCom-3 in order to elaborate appropriate amendments to the WSIS documents. She also conducted consultations on this issue with the organizers of working meeting of UNCTAD and World Confederation of Labor and 9th session of Committee on Entrepreneurship, Business and Development of UNCTAD, which took place at the Palais des Nations on 23-24 February simultaneously with PrepCom-2. The consultations acknowledged the importance to contribute to business establishment in the sphere of development, create necessary business environment and system of specialists training, as well as develop necessary financial mechanisms.

As a member of Supervisory and Coordinating Boards of the Russian e-Development Partnership and head of member organization of Global Knowledge Partnership (IIS is official member of GKP since 2000 and regional coordinator of GKP in 2005), T. Ershova participated in discussion of the initiative to create a new UN structure - Agency on Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships. One of the main goals of creating such agency is giving official status to multi-stakeholder partnerships created by different stakeholders in order to resolve particular tasks in the sphere of development.