Apr, 2005 : ICANN moves to equip AfriNIC for its new mission

AfriNIC, Africa's own Regional Internet number Registry (RIR) has justreceived its first allocation of numbering resources, including IP addressesand Autonomous System Numbers for the Africa region.

The full recognition of AfriNIC by ICANN's Board of Directors at its recentmeeting in Argentina represents the culmination of efforts by the Africanand global Internet community over several years to bring local managementof Internet numbering resources to the Africa region.

AfriNIC is a successful cooperative effort developed by the African Internetcommunity. AfriNIC will join the American Registry for Internet Numbers(ARIN), the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), the LatinAmerican and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC) and Ripe NetworkCoordination Centre (RIPE NCC), as the fifth RIR within the global Internetcommunity.

ICANN, through its performance of the IANA function, allocates blocks ofnumber resources to the five RIRs, who in turn distribute them to local ISPsand networking companies. These numbers allow networks to communicateeffectively with each other and route Internet traffic across the globe.

To view the IANA Report on Recognition of AfriNIC please see:http://www.iana.org/reports/afrinic-report-08apr05.htm.

For any media enquires please email press@icann.org.

About AfriNIC:
AfriNIC is a non-government, not-for-profit, membership based organisation,based in Mauritius to serve the African Internet community. AfriNIC is theRegional Registry for Internet Number Resources for Africa. Membership isopen to anybody. Its policy development process is open to anybody withoutany specific requirements.

About ICANN:
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is aninternationally organised, non-profit corporation that has responsibilityfor Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifierassignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain namesystem management, and root server system management functions. As aprivate-public partnership, ICANN is dedicated to preserving the operationalstability of the Internet; to promoting competition; to achieving broadrepresentation of global Internet