The Caribbean ICT Virtual Community (CIVIC) has been in existence since November 2002, when it was formally established with the support of Institute for Connectivity in the Americas (ICA) as an outcome of the Caribbean ICT Roundtable held in Barbados, October 2002. Although it initially comprised of participants of the workshop, membership was quickly opened up to all active ICT stakeholders in the Caribbean who were intent of sharing information and knowledge on ICT for development issues affecting the region. The common description of CIVIC is a “virtual forum of Caribbean ICT stakeholders and a venue for sharing information, holding discussions, networking and linking ideas, actors, projects or initiatives on ICTs and development in the Caribbean”. The aims and objectives soon became articulated in a Charter1 which was discussed and agreed to by the then existing members (January 2003).These are: “To contribute in the building of a common vision/perspective on ICTs, and to promote Caribbean strategy and/or regional Caribbean-wide actions.”

* The lack of a Caribbean voice in international meetings related to ICT4D or Information Society issues.
* The lack of a common strategy to guide the development of ICTs in the region.
* The challenge posed by language barriers.

Over the first 10 months of CIVIC existence, some significant activities were carried out. Among these, collaborative development of a position paper for WSIS and identification of the following issues:

In addition, it was noted that in the absence of animation, the virtual discussions were sporadic and there were only a relatively few active participants. It was also concluded that for the community to have an impact on issues affecting the region, some facilitation, tools and methodologies needed to be developed.