by Anderson Mwale
A conference of Internet professionals from Africa’s six regions recently held in the West African state of Benin adopted a proposal creating the African Network Information Centre (AfriNic), an African Internet Registry which will participate in the critical administration of the Internet on the continent and represent its interests in the growing Internet world.
Africa -did not have such a body before and has been relying on Europe for all its Internet related services and products. The African registry whose location is yet to be decided, is expected to allocate Internet Protocol (IP) address space, autonomous system numbers, and other identifiers that may from time to time be appropriate in the administration of the Internet on the continent.
A vast number of Internet related databases and information will be created and maintained by the registry. Membership to the registry will be open to African institutes and the population at large.
The new registry is to operate as a neutral, non-profit body which will seek to protect the long term interests of the entire African community in the Internet world. Scarce resources such as IP addresses which are the basis of the Internet will be placed under the direct administration of the registry to ensure fair and palatable distribution throughout the continent.
In particular, it is anticipated that AfriNic will not be selling address space, but will manage it in public trust according to widely supported guidelines. A setup of this kind will promote and preserve universal access and the free availability of the Internet in Africa.
The conference, organised by the Africa Internet Group (AI G), took place three years after the group’s formation. African participants to the Internet Networking (INET ’95) conference, an annual premier event in the information technology industry, held in Hawaii in 1995 called for the formation of the AIG to improve African representation.
The adoption of the proposal creating AfriNic was made at the first conference of the AIG held in the coastal city of Cotonou in Benin on 15-18 December 1998. The conference was sponsored by the UNDP, the Agency de la Francophonie and the Government of Benin. The theme of the conference was “Administration of Internet Protocol Addresses and Domain Names and the Strengthening of African Emerging Institutions”.
The conference came as a follow up to a series of efforts to create a global consensus on a US Government white paper on Internet governance issued last June and aimed at transferring the administrative and coordination functions of the Internet and its related resources to a new global, Non-profit corporation with an international board.
The new corporation to be known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and 1 numbers (rCANN) is set to take over the activities of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), a federally financed authority based in the USA which is currently the central coordinator for the Internet address space, domain names and IP conventions essential to the use and operation of the Internet.
In an opening address to the Benin conference, George Sadowsky, the Internet Society (ISOC) Vice- President for Education, started off by paying tribute to the Internet pioneer and initiator of lANA, the late Dr Jonathan Postel for his tremendous work in the Internet world.
Dr Postel passed away in October last year following complications from a surgery. His death came at a critical juncture for the Internet in that he had in that same month delivered a response to the US white paper on the creation of ICANN to the US Department of Commerce.
Sadowsky went on to discuss the importance of internet governance and its relevance to Africa emphasing on the need for her need to get involved in the management of the technology.
He said the problem of internet governance was divided in three issues relating to government, administration and culture.
At the purely governance level he pointed out that internet had implications for laws of all kinds, especially those related to freedom of speech, pornography and in some instances violence. “Governments must therefore intervene,” he said.
Administration wise, Sadowsky indicated that both Internet number addresses and domain names needed to be administered if chaos is to be avoided on the network and technicians were responsible for this task.
Nii Quaynor, the President of network Computer Systems, a Ghanaian Internet Service Provider, presented a paper on the Emerging African Internet Institutions urged the African continent not keep away from the administration of the internet. He urged the region to fund at least partially, its own organization, the AIG, and make it a sound and viable institution in the Internet arena in Africa so that other organisations such as AfriNic can also assume a strong foundation.
A resolution creating AfriNic was adopted by the delegates. A provisional body of AfriNic
consisting twelve members, two from each of Africa’s six regions, was created with a six month mandate to oversee the establishment of the centre in a country with a conducive environment for such an organisation.
Southern Africa will be represented by Allan Barret, a South African national and Almada Silvio from Angola. The two are representatives of Internet Service Providers in their respective countries.(SARDC)
