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PRESS RELEASE: AfriNIC Given Final Recognition from ICANN as the Fifth Regional Internet
Registry Serving the African Region (PDF)

[April 08 2005]

[AfriNIC Ltd. – Port Louis , Mauritius ] Today in Mar del Plata , Argentina , during the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board meeting, a resolution was adopted
by the Board to recognize AfriNIC as the new and fifth Regional Internet Registry (RIR) to serve
Africa and the Indian Ocean .

This resolution followed a report presented by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
on AfriNIC's application sent to ICANN in September 2004. According to Barbara Roseman, the
IANA's Operation Manager, AfriNIC has met all ten ICP-2 criteria for establishing a new RIR.

“This is very rewarding news for Africa and the Internet community at large”, said Adiel Akplogan,
AfriNIC's CEO.”It is a starting point for more participation by Africa in the global Internet technical
cooperation system. It is also a positive step for the continent towards the management of the
Internet. Having their own registry is proof that Africans want to look seriously into the evolution
of the Internet. “

The project was initiated by African network operators and supported by governments of the
three African countries:

• South Africa , by funding the operations center located in Pretoria;
• Mauritius , by hosting the AfriNIC headquarters in the newly built Cyber Tower;
• and Egypt , by funding a disaster recovery centre.

AfriNIC, by its structure, also demonstrates integration of the different regions of the African
continent. AfriNIC is managed by a board elected from the six identified sub-regions of the
continent (Northern, Western, Central, Eastern, Southern and Indian Ocean).

AfriNIC's accreditation opens a new era of Internet management in Africa .

BACKGROUND:

AfriNIC: AfriNIC is the emerging RIR that aims to manage IP resources in Africa and the
Indian Ocean regions. AfriNIC is a not-for-profit and non-governmental membership based
organisation set up by African network operators and incorporated in Mauritius . For its set-up
process, AfriNIC received financial support from the South African, Mauritian and Egyptian
governments. Prior to AfriNIC's set up, Africa was served by three different RIRs (APNIC, for
Indian Ocean countries; the RIPE NCC, for African countries located above the equator; and
ARIN, for African countries located below the equator).

NRO: Formed by the RIRs to formalise their co-operative efforts, the Number Resource Organization
exists to protect the unallocated Number Resource pool, to promote and protect the bottom-up policy
development process, and to act as a focal point for Internet community input into the RIR system.

More Information about AfriNIC can be found at: www.afrinic.net

More information on the existing RIRs can be found at:

http://www.ripe.net/info/resource-admin/index.html or on http://www.nro.net