AFRINIC
AFRINIC is the regional Internet registry for Africa and nearby islands in the Indian Ocean, responsible for allocating and registering Internet Protocol addresses and autonomous system numbers in its service region. It also provides related technical and administrative services that support the Internet in Africa. Established in 2004, with headquarters in Ebene, Mauritius, AFRINIC is one of five regional Internet registries that coordinate a fundamental part of the technical infrastructure of the Internet.
AFRINIC is a not-for-profit organization with about 2,400 members across 56 countries in its service region. Members include Internet service providers, Internet exchange points, governments, academic institutions, and other organizations and businesses that operate networks. AFRINIC allocates IP address space to members, maintains registration databases, develops policies in consultation with members and the wider Internet community, and provides technical training for network operators. AFRINIC charges members annual fees to cover its operational costs.
AFRINIC has had significant organizational and legal problems. In 2019, a news website reported that an AFRINIC staff member had modified the registration information for 4.1 million IPv4 addresses to sell them on the grey market. In 2020, AFRINIC and a member company, Cloud Innovation Ltd, began a series of legal disputes related to IPv4 address allocation, which led to frozen assets, many injunctions, and, in 2022, the dissolution of the AFRINIC board of directors by the Supreme Court of Mauritius. AFRINIC operated under court-appointed receivership starting in 2023. In June 2025, the receiver tried to conduct a board election, but halted it due to concerns about election integrity. The receiver held a successful board election in September 2025.
Technical operations and programs
Internet numbers
As a regional Internet registry, AFRINIC receives large blocks of Internet numbers from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, a function of the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. AFRINIC is responsible for the allocation and registration of IP addresses and autonomous system numbers for network operators in its service region, which includes Africa and part of the Indian Ocean.AFRINIC manages IPv4 addresses, which are widely-supported but relatively scarce, along with IPv6 addresses, which are newer and plentiful but not yet supported by all systems. AFRINIC manages about 6% of the global IPv4 address pool, a smaller amount per capita than other regions.
WHOIS database
The AFRINIC WHOIS database contains registration details of IP addresses and AS numbers allocated by AFRINIC. It shows the organizations that hold the resources, where the allocations were made, and contact details for the networks. Resource holders are responsible for updating their information in the database. The database can be searched by using the web interface on the AFRINIC site or by directing a whois client to whois.afrinic.net.AFRINIC also supports the Registration Data Access Protocol, the successor to the WHOIS protocol.
Routing security support
facilitate Internet traffic and improve security, including by reducing risk of Border Gateway Protocol hijacking. Originally AFRINIC encouraged members to register their Internet number resources in RIPE NCC's IRR. In 2013, AFRINIC established its own IRR. In 2025, staff reported that 1,767 members use AFRINIC's IRR.AFRINIC supports Resource Public Key Infrastructure, which also improves the security of Border Gateway Protocol routing. In 2025, staff reported that 720 members have adopted Resource Public Key Infrastructure, with 11,216 Route Origin Authorizations.
Domain Name System services
AFRINIC enables reverse DNS lookup for its IPv4 and IPv6 address blocks. This allows people to look up an IP address allocated by AFRINIC and find any associated domain names in the Domain Name System.AFRINIC publishes reverse DNS zone data to support Domain Name System Security Extensions.
To improve the resiliency of DNS in its service region, AFRINIC offers secondary DNS hosting services for primary name servers in Africa.
Policy development
AFRINIC staff develop its Internet number allocation policies in collaboration with the organization's members as well as the broader Internet community. Representatives from governments, standards organizations, companies, academia, news media, the technical community, civil society, and other not-for-profit organizations all participate in policy development. These representatives are primarily, but not exclusively, from Africa.The primary forums for policy development are face-to-face public policy meetings and mailing list discussions. Each year, AFRINIC conducts two public policy meetings that give members and other stakeholders the chance to come together for policy development, information sharing, and networking. The first public policy meeting of each year is part of the Africa Internet Summit, which is an annual multi-stakeholder event co-organized by the African Network Operators Group, and the second is held as a standalone meeting. The meetings take place in various locations throughout Africa.
Together with the four other regional Internet registries, AFRINIC is part of the Number Resource Organization, which enables the RIRs to coordinate with each other and make joint policy recommendations to ICANN.
Capacity building and partnerships
As part of its capacity building initiatives, AFRINIC conducts training courses for network administrators, network architects, and other network engineers across its service region. Workshops include Internet number resource management and implementation of IPv6 networks. AFRINIC also offers online training courses on topics including IPv6 deployment, Internet number resource management, DNSSEC, and RPKI. These courses teach participants to configure, manage, and administer Internet services and infrastructure using current best practices.File:ICANN and AfriNIC Agreement Letter Exchange.jpg|thumb|ICANN leaders and AFRINIC CEO Adiel Akplogan together in 2012 to establish an initiative to expand root name server instances in Africa In 2007, AFRINIC and the African Telecommunications Union established a partnership to accelerate adoption of IPv6 networks in Africa, due to IPv4 exhaustion, and develop tools to measure Internet performance. AFRINIC has supported the deployment of regional root name server copies that are compatible with both IPv4 and IPv6.
AFRINIC and the Internet Society have worked together to train staff of Internet exchange points and Internet service providers to support routing more of Africa's internet traffic within the continent instead of externally. The organizations have also partnered on measurement initiatives to evaluate Internet performance and reliability across Africa. For example, they built a route analysis tool to learn about and monitor the amount of interconnection between Internet exchange points within Africa.
Organization
As required by ICANN policy for regional Internet registries, AFRINIC is a non-profit, non-governmental, community-led entity, without formal backing from governments or politicians. The relevant ICANN policy is Internet Coordination Policy 2, "Criteria for Establishment of New Regional Internet Registries".Service region
AFRINIC's service region is the continent of Africa and adjacent islands in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, including Madagascar. It is divided into six sub-regions to ensure regional representation on the board of directors: Eastern Region, Western Region, Central Africa, Northern Africa, Southern Africa, and Indian Ocean.Board of directors
The AFRINIC bylaws prescribe a nine-member board of directors. Six directors are elected to represent the six sub-regions, and two directors are elected based on professional expertise. The last seat on the board is filled by the chief executive officer.AFRINIC members elect directors at annual general member meetings, normally in May or June. The organization's bylaws define quorum for this meeting as the presence of four regional directors, one non-regional director, and five members. Members vote on-site at the meeting and prior to the meeting via online voting. The elected directors serve three-year terms.
The directors elect a chair of the board and a vice-chair. The directors appoint a chief executive officer, which is a staff role.
Council of Elders
The AFRINIC Council of Elders, which consists of up to six former board chairs, advises the board. The council is not elected by organization members. In 2023, the Council of Elders consisted of Nii N. Quaynor, Pierre S. Dandjinou, Viv Padayatchy, Maimouna Ndeye Diop Diagne, and Christian Bope.Staff
AFRINIC staff carry out the daily operations of the organization, including technical and administrative responsibilities. The staff is structured in several departments: CEO's Office, Finance and Accounting, People and Productivity, Capacity Building, Communications and Public Relations, Infrastructure and Security, Member Services, Registry Products, Stakeholder Development, and Value Added Services.Members
Membership is open to individuals, companies, organizations, and governments that are based in and providing services in Africa. Members include Internet service providers, Internet exchange points, data centers, universities, banks, governments, and individuals.History
Formation
Before AFRINIC formed, IP addresses for Africa were distributed by the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre, the American Registry for Internet Numbers, and the RIPE NCC.At an INET workshop in Malaysia in 1997, participants developed a proposal for an African regional Internet registry. An initial board of trustees came together in 2001, chaired by Nii Quaynor.
The organization was established as an organization in Mauritius, with plans for technical operations in South Africa, backup and disaster recovery in Egypt, and training coordination in Ghana. ICANN gave AFRINIC provisional approval in October 2004. The registry became operational in February 2005. ICANN gave it final recognition in April 2005. Adiel Akplogan served as the founding CEO and stayed as CEO until 2015.