What is AFRINIC? A company that keeps a record

AFRINIC is a company that keeps a list.

It is one of five regional internet registries, and it describes itself as “a nonprofit, member-based organisation registered and operating under the Corporate Legal Frameworks of Mauritius”. The numbers it registers are not its own: by its own account they “are allocated to AFRINIC and the four other RIRs by Public Technical Identifiers (PTI)”, the body that coordinates the internet’s identifiers for the whole world. No treaty created AFRINIC and no parliament elected it.

AFRINIC’s core function is to keep an accurate record.

A registry writes down which network holds which addresses, so that no two networks use the same ones. AFRINIC gives its own mission as “To serve the African Internet community”. Serve, not rule: the record helps the rest of the internet find a network, and it gives its keeper no claim on that network. An address book does not own the city.

AFRINIC is in Mauritius, and it answers to the courts of Mauritius.

It is a company on the register of the Registrar of Companies there. On 12 September 2023, on our application, the Supreme Court restrained AFRINIC from relocating, merging, restructuring or submitting to a takeover. A registry that stays where an independent court can reach it is one its members can hold to account.

AFRINIC belongs to its members: the networks whose addresses it records.

It is a company, and a company belongs to its members, not to its Board, its Receiver or any government. On 11 June 2025, on AFRINIC’s own application, the Supreme Court ordered AFRINIC to enter us in its register of members, and every eligible Resource Member belongs in that register with the rights that come with it.

AFRINIC is in the hands of a Receiver and of a Board whose election is still before the Court.

The Supreme Court placed AFRINIC in receivership on 12 September 2023, on our application, when it had four directors, too few for a board quorum, and no chief executive. In June 2025 the Receiver annulled a whole election over “one disputed proxy”, and the Board that came out of the disputed election of September 2025 is one we do not recognise as lawfully constituted.

AFRINIC is not a government, a regulator or an international organisation.

When its management asked the Government of Mauritius, repeatedly, for the status and immunities of an international organisation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied that the request “cannot be entertained”. AFRINIC licenses no network and speaks for no continent. It answers to the law like any other company.

AFRINIC matters because a network in Africa cannot choose another registry.

The 1992 proposal for regional registries asked for “just a single regional registry per geographical region”, and since 4 February 2026 a network cannot leave with its addresses either. In 2021 AFRINIC moved to end our membership, which would have taken back the addresses our customers’ networks run on, and the Supreme Court stopped it three times. A sole provider owes its customers more, not less.