webAfriqa

.africa (dot africa)

Africa's Generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) Project

First proposed in 1997 by Tierno S. Bah, the goal of the .africa Project is twofold:

Build a continental Internet Domain Name System (DNS) infrastracture
Bridge the digital divide that is penalizing Africa on all fronts: economy, business, trade, administration, health, culture, education, technology, …

Making .africa an operational and successful reality will require the cooperation of its major stakeholders:

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
The African Union
African Governments
The Internet Technical community
The private sector
Professional associations and non-governmental organizations
Grassroots communities

As of the third quarter 2009, ICANN is readying the final version of the principles, recommendations and implementation guidelines for new Generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs). The .africa Project falls in that category and it will leverage the policies of international standard bodies.

.africa complements the existing 54 Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLD), managed by sovereign governements on behalf of their citizens. It will have structural parity with, and fonctional equivalence to .eu and .asia (approval pending).

Reaching beyond its legal framework and its engineering foundation, the raison d'être of .africa is to contribute practically and positively in affirming Africa's presence on the global digital network infrastructure.

Content is king, the saying goes. And, where applicable, information is increasingly gaining currency as the prime commodity of the 21st century. The .africa Project should result in the creation of mutually benefitial modern communications networks within Africa and between Africa and the other continents. Its deployment, and its proper and secure use, should expand the democratization of the Internet.

In essence, the effective implementation of .africa should make the continent a net bit exporter and an actual player in the global marketplace of digital goods and services.