The African Network Information Center (AFRINIC) is the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Africa, responsible for the distribution and management of Internet number resources such as IP addresses and ASN (Autonomous System Numbers) for the African region.

AFRINIC’s mission is to provide professional and efficient distribution of Internet number resources to the African Internet community, to support Internet technology usage and development across the continent and to strengthen Internet self-governance in Africa by encouraging a participatory policy development.

The allocation of the Internet address space is primarily carried out by the IANA (Internet Assigned Name Authority) under a contract with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). IANA allocates IP address blocks to RIRs (Regional Internet Registries) which have the authority to re-allocate them within their respective geographical areas (of continental scope).

There are four other RIRs worldwide: RIPE-NCC (serving Europe and surrounding areas), APNIC (serving Asia and Pacific region), ARIN (serving North America) and LACNIC(serving Latin America and the Caribbean).