Mauritius, 13th April 2023: The African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC) is proud to celebrate 18 years of its establishment back in April 8th, 2005. AFRINIC, the youngest Regional Internet Registry (RIR), serves Africa and the Indian Ocean region with a primary objective of ensuring proper distribution of critical Internet resources like IP addresses and Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs).
AFRINIC’s journey began in the mid-1990s when organisations providing Internet services and other network operators in Africa were required to get Internet Number Resources from other Regional Registries. The challenges faced by African Internet Operators back then, led to discussions amongst the pioneers about starting a dedicated Regional Internet Registry for the continent. After much deliberations and collaboration efforts from various individuals and organisations, AFRINIC became a reality on April 8th, 2005, after being accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to become the fifth Regional Internet Registry. Mauritius was chosen as the RIR headquarters, Egypt as the technical base, Ghana as domicile for capacity building, and South Africa was selected to host the data center. The Government of Mauritius, through the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications welcomed AFRINIC in Mauritius and provided the first office at Cyber Tower, Ebene on rent-free basis. Other African governments were instrumental in the setting up process, the government of South Africa in particular, took charge for all expenses during the first year of operations, while hosting the first two AFRINIC’s staff. After the establishment, Dr. Nii Quaynor, one of the Founders is quoted,“It took the elders a decade to build consensus for forming AFRINIC, We must have a strong AFRINIC community before the end of the next decade.”
Since its establishment, AFRINIC has been instrumental in providing its services to Africa and the Indian Ocean region. AFRINIC is responsible for the allocation and management of Internet Number Resources (INRs), we have distributed over 111 million IPv4 addresses, 10,000 /32s of IPv6 addresses and 2281 ASNs in Africa and our contribution to the digital growth of Africa today is widely recognised.
AFRINIC has been facing challenges that have crippled the governance structure for some time now. In this period, we have remained committed to serving our members and the global Internet community. Our stakeholders and our community have continued supporting us all through these difficult times and we are confident that such . Such support is indeed invigorating and has fuelled us to pursue our noble mission.
-ENDS-
About the African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC)
AFRINIC is the Regional Internet Registry for Africa. Based in Mauritius, this not-for-profit organisation with 46 staff members, is responsible for the distribution and management of Internet numbers (IPv4, IPv6 addresses and autonomous system numbers) for Africa and the Indian Ocean. Serving more than 2,000 organisations in the public, private and academic sectors, AFRINIC contributes to the development of the African Internet through the equitable distribution of Internet numbers, technical support and capacity building of African engineers and policymakers in the field of Internet technology and governance. More on AFRINIC can be found at https://afrinic.net/about
