ITU and UNESCO convened the Global Symposium on Promoting the Multilingual Internet as a follow-up of Phase 2 of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, adopted at the Tunis Phase of WSIS, highlights the importance of multilingualism for bridging the digital divide. It identifies ITU as taking the lead role in the implementation of information and communication infrastructure (WSIS Tunis Agenda Action Line C2), ITU/UNESCO for access to information and knowledge (WSIS Tunis Agenda Action Line C3), and UNESCO for cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content (WSIS Tunis Agenda Action Line C8).

The symposium examined issues highlighted in paragraph 53 of the WSIS Tunis Agenda, including:

1. Options for advancing the process for the introduction of multilingualism in a number of areas including domain names, email addresses and keyword look-up;
2. Options for implementing programmes, also in cooperation with other appropriate organizations, that allow for the presence of multilingual domain names and content on the internet and the use of various software models in order to fight against the linguistic digital divide and ensure the participation of all in the emerging new society;
3. Options for strengthening cooperation between relevant bodies for the further development of technical standards and to foster their global deployment;

In addition, the event reviewed technical solutions and current experiences, identified open issues and discussed a roadmap for further steps to promote multilingualism in the internet.