AfriNIC, the Regional Internet Registry for Africa, held its 5th public policy meeting in Mauritius from the 29th of November to the 1st of December 2006.
This meeting held along with the second African IPv6 conference exposed the latest works being carried out on the IPv6 as well as Internet Governance and IP number resources allocation policy in Africa.
In his opening remarks, the Minister of IT and Telecommunications of Mauritius called for greater participation of all stakeholders in Africa with regards to Internet Governance. The meeting was attended by 120 delegates from 35 countries including AfriNIC Board members, staff, representatives from AfNOG, APNIC, ARIN, ICANN, ISOC, LACNIC, RIPE NCC, officials from Governments and African Network Operators at large.
The largest proportion of attendees were from telecom operators followed by ISPs, giving an indication of the importance that telecommunication operators are now giving to the role of AfriNIC and the Internet Number Resources.
The INET Africa Regional Conference of the Internet Society which was organised during the same event (on 30th of November 2006) allowed various issues relating to the role of IETF and AfTLD to be discussed as well as the some best practices for ccTLD Management. African participants to the most recent IETF meeting also gave a report on their participation.