[AfrICANN-discuss] Post AfriNIC-11 Press Release

[Lillian O. Sharpley]

For Immediate Release
				                          

AFRINIC-11, DAKAR, SENEGAL

The African Network Information Center, AfriNIC, the Regional Internet Registry
for Africa, held its 11th Public Policy Meeting, 21 – 27 November 2009, at the
Radisson Blu Hotel, Dakar, Senegal.  The meeting, which was graciously hosted by
l’Agence de Régulation des Télécommunications et des Postes (ARTP) and sponsored
by Espresso, Huawei, Internet Society (ISOC), and Orange, was attended by some
150 delegates representing twenty (20) nations.  

Mr. Ndongo Diao, Directeur General, ARTP, opened the meeting with remarks,
followed by the Keynote Address from Mrs. Aminata Tall, Ministre d'état,
Secrétaire Générale de la Présidence de la République. The programme consisted
of two-days of IPv6 training, workshops on Internet Measurement, DNS Operations,
Mail Abuse, African 4th IPv6 Day, Internet Governance Day, two-days of Plenary
Sessions that included the Public Policy Discussion. 

The industry presentations covered issues related to Access, Security, IPv4
exhaustion and the uptake of IPv6, Internet Governance initiatives, report of
the IGF 2009 event, updates from the Internet Community for Assigned Names and
Numbers, ISOC, other RIRs, Orange, Huawei, ARTP, Association of African
Universities (AAU), and other representation from academia, government, and the
private sector. On the issue of Security, AfriNIC announced the first AfriNIC
Government Working Group event for Law Enforcement Agencies to be held 25 – 26
January, 2010, Ebene, Mauritius.

One of the major outcomes of the Public Policy Discussion was the consensus by
the community to endorse the Global Policy proposal for “Allocation of ASN
Blocks to the RIRs by IANA.” Another policy proposal discussed was the 'IPv6
Allocations to Non-Profit Networks', with a consensus being reached that
proposal should be withdrawn, and that the author of the proposal should liaise
with the AfriNIC staff and Board to devise a more viable solution if the main
rational is to have a special discount and category for this category of users.
 A third policy proposal, related to 'IPv4 Soft Landing' which define how
AfriNIC should manage its last IPv4 blocks, did not reach consensus during the
meeting and was returned to the Resource Policy Discuss (RPD) mailing list for
further discussion. 

During the meeting, AfriNIC and AAU signed a Memorandum of Understanding,
establishing that AAU via a grant from FRENIA will contribute to the setup fees
and a first-year membership fee of eligible African Academic institutions and
RENs from Africa.  This is the second MoU between AfriNIC and AAU to support the
common goal of improving Campus and Research network infrastructure in Africa.  

AfriNIC’s Public Policy meetings are open to anyone and are particularly
relevant to members, ISPs, the Internet community, academia, governments and
regulators. Participation in these meetings will give you tremendous
opportunities to improve your network infrastructure, increase your knowledge on
Internet related issues, networking, and to have your say in policies that
affect future development of the Internet in your region. We are pleased to
announce that AfriNIC’s 12th Public Policy meeting will be held in Kigali,
Rwanda, 23 May - 4 June, 2010 and would like to extend a warm invitation to the
community to attend and participate. Access our website at www.afrinic.net for
additional information.

http://www.afrinic.net/af11_press.pdf

Contact: Lillian Sharpley
Communications Area Manager
Email: press at afrinic.net