Several non-government organisations (NGO) have been building alliances in order to advance gender initiatives at the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

The first of such alliances featured in this column was the WSIS Gender Caucus. This Caucus, formed during the African Regional meeting in Bamako in May, focuses on the development of the women's position and lobby in the WSIS process. It is being co-ordinated by Gillian Marcelle.

Another such alliance is the WSIS NGO Gender Strategies Group (WNGSG). The WNGSG was formed as part of the Civil Society Coordinating Group during the WSIS's First PrepCom meeting in July. The groups under the WNGSG are: Isis International-Manila, International Women's Tribune Centre (IWTC), Association for Progressive Communications - Women's Networking Support Programme (APC-WNSP), ALAI, and the African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET-Africa). Susanna George, executive director of Isis, was designated as the co-ordinator of this group.

The WNGSG's tasks are:

• to raise awareness on the issues and processes around the WSIS
• to encourage women's participation at all levels of WSIS discussions
• to conduct capacity-building training and network-building to ensure links between national, sub-regional, regional and international initiatives around WSIS

The importance of these alliances were discussed at the recently concluded Global Community Networking (GCN) Conference in Montreal, Canada last 7-12 October The women's discussion on WSIS was one of the many parallel WSIS workshops/meetings held on the last day of the GCN.

The participants to the Women and WSIS workshop discussed that women's involvement in ICT issues goes beyond the WSIS process. A continuing advocacy at the national, sub-regional, regional and international levels was agreed upon with the conclusion that women should be able to participate in all decision-making spaces around ICT and gender issues.

The women participants at the GCN agreed to set up an electronic mailing list to facilitate information sharing and discussion on the issues that are being taken up in the Summit.

Further progress reports about these gender initiatives group will be provided as soon as they are made available.