Open
Anyone is free to contribute to policy discussions and propose policy.
Bottom Up
Policies are developed by the community through the PDP that is also developed by the same community.
Transparent
The process and all discussions are publicly available
AFRINIC implements what the community has proposed, discussed and attained consensus on.
Definitions & Provisions
Scope of the PDP
The Policy Development Process covers the development and modification of policies for handling Internet Number Resources within the AFRINIC service region. Changes to the Policy Development Process itself will also follow the process...
Policy Development Principles
The Internet community develops all policies following the three principles of openness, transparency and fairness. The Internet community initiates and discusses the proposals. If consensus is reached on the draft policy, it is recommended to the AFRINIC Board of Directors for adoption as a policy...
The PDWG
The Policy Development Working Group (PDWG) discusses the proposals. Anyone may participate via the Internet or in person. PDWG work is carried out through the Resource Policy Discussion mailing list...
Policy Development Process
During the policy development, draft versions of the document are made available for review and comment by publishing them on the AFRINIC website and posting them to the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. mailing list.
Conflict Resolution
A person who disagrees with the actions taken by the Chair(s) shall discuss the matter with the PDWG Chair(s) or with the PDWG. If the disagreement cannot be resolved, the person may file an appeal with an Appeal Committee appointed by the AFRINIC Board of Directors...
Varying the Process
The process outlined in this document may vary in the case of an emergency. Variance is for use when a one-time waiving of some provision of this document is required.
Draft Policy Template
The draft policy proposal text shall be submitted following the template format...
The CPM
The Consolidated Policy Manual (CPM) is the reference document containing policies for managing and distributing IP number resources in the AFRINIC service region.
Policy proposal & Nomenclature
Understanding the PDP Jargons
Policy proposals are assigned the following “status” values in their PDP life cycle until they have been implemented and added to the Consolidated Policy Manual.
| Under Discussion | The proposal is open to discussion on the mailing list. |
| Approved | Approved and ratified by the AFRINIC Board, pending implementation. |
| Withdrawn | Withdrawn by the author(s). |
ID format for New Policy Proposals
- Each policy proposal is assigned a unique ID of the format below:
- "AFPUB-YYYY-Category-Number"-draft-nn"
- YYYY=year in long format e.g., 2011
- Category refers to resource or service type affected by the proposal. Valid categories are ASN=AS Numbers, v4=IPv4, v6=IPv6, DNS=all DNS matters, GEN=all others.
- Number= Serial number within that year starting from 001 for that category of policy documents.
- nn=Integer that starts with 01 and increases by 1 for every new proposal version.
- If/when the proposal is implemented, numbering is abandoned as the content as ratified will get inserted into the Policy Manual.
