WSIS Civil Society Multi-Stakeholder Family has been previously coordinated  by Adel El Zaim (adel.elzaim [at] canti.com) and was declared as inactive by the Civil Society Bureau in December 2004 (CapeTown meeting).

The new-born MSP Family was recognised by the Civil Society Bureau at the third meeting of the WSIS Tunis Phase Preparatory Committee in September 2005 in Geneva.

The goals of the Family's activity include the following:

• Responding to need recognized in the Geneva Declaration for "new forms of solidarity, partnership and cooperation among governments and other stakeholders ... (who) should work together ... (and) have an important role and responsibility in the development of the Information Society and, as appropriate, in decision making processes";
• Promoting multi-stakeholderism as a guiding principle for all actions and developments in Tunis and beyond;
• Fostering interested parties' participation in national and international processes concerning complex development issues  of the information society;
• Developing rules and modes for sustainable cooperation among different actors;
• Developing and implementing a system for an assessment of participatory practices in the Implementation of WSIS in the years to come.

The coordinators of the WSIS CS MSP Family are:

• Tatiana Ershova, Institute of the Information Society, Moscow, Russia (tatiana.ershova [at] iis.ru)
• Claudia Padovani, Department of Historical and Political Studies, Faculty of Political Science, University of Padova (claudia.padovani [at] unipd.it).

The mailing list for those interested to join the WSIS MSP Family is: wsis-msp@yahoogroups.com