[AFRINIC-announce] AFRINIC and ICANN to cooperate further in Internet Development in Africa

[Babusha Radhakissoon]

*[Please disregard previous mail]

Cybercity, Ebene, Mauritius, 18 October 2012 -* The African Network
Information Centre (AFRINIC) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) today signed letters of agreement to
facilitate the deployment of anycast instances of L Root DNS server,
operated by ICANN, in the African region. The cooperation includes
AFRINIC helping to identify hosts for the installations as well as
providing financial and technical support where needed, to the hosts.
This agreement is signed just as the African community, in the new
initiative it is taking to ICANN has highlighted regional infrastructure
resiliency as one of the main pillars of Internet development in the region.

The letters of agreement were signed by Adiel Akplogan and Fadi Chehadé
respectively Chief Executive Officers of AFRINIC and ICANN in Toronto,
Canada, where ICANN's 45th public meeting is taking place.
"This agreement comes in at a perfect time here in Toronto when ICANN
has unveiled a new initiative to increase presence and participation
across our region" said Adiel Akplogan. "Besides policy related
discussions and participation, Africa needs to strengthen the resiliency
of its Internet Infrastructure in order to attract local contents
investments."

"This very important agreement is a further reflection of the hard work
of the Africa stakeholders and their spirit of engagement," said Fadi
Chehadé, President and Chief Executive Officer of ICANN. "Our commitment
to this sort of cooperative effort is framed by the initiative of the
Africa Support Working Group, which is aimed at increasing African
participation in ICANN."
ICANN, as the operator of the L-Root Server, will work cooperatively
with AFRINIC to identify candidate sites within the region of Africa
that meet the criteria for the hosting of anycast instances of the
L-Root server operated by ICANN.

As part of AFRINIC's mission, the organisation is committed to promoting
Internet development within the region, and has demonstrated commitment
to enhancing the stability, reach, strength and response times of the
DNS system regionally as well as globally. AFRINIC has currently several
projects to accomplish those objectives. Amongst these, the African Root
Server Copy Programme (AfRSCP) project aims to increase the number of
DNS root servers instances in the African region as well as its own DNS
Anycast platform where AFRINIC hosts its own DNS services but also make
it available at no cost for ccTLDs in the region.

-- 
Ms. Babusha Radhakissoon                   Tel:   +230 403 51 00
PR and Marketing Assistant, AFRINIC        Fax:   +230 466 67 58
babusha at afrinic.net - www.afrinic.net       
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Join us at AFRINIC-17 for our Public Policy Meeting in Khartoum, Sudan, on 24 -- 29 November 2012
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