AfriNIC is an African body aimed at administering the process of assigning internet names and numbers to African websites. Until now, either American or European organisations, acting under the auspices of California based Icann, have been responsible for assigning internet addresses to all African websites.

The process of setting up AfriNIC has taken several years, but the new organisation will officially begin operations later this year. A high level meeting to finalise plans for the launch, is due to be held in Dakar, Senegal later in May.

AfriNIC's operational activities will be spread through four African countries. It will be legally incorporated in, and administered in Mauritius, the training centre will be in Ghana, while the technical operations will be run from South Africa and mirror and disaster recovery operations will take place in Egypt.

Kamal recognises the symbolic value of AfriNIC taking control of African cyberspace, but acknowledges the difficulties the organisation will face in trying to coordinate the legacy systems in place in all the African countries.

As Africans will no longer have to pay Europeans or Americans for the right to own a website address, this will make a significant impact on the continental foreign exchange position.

The Egyptian civil servant is optimistic about the future of AfriNIC but believes that it needs technical and material support from Icann in order to be able to launch its services efficiently. He is disappointed because he says that up to now, Icann has not devoted much attention to the requirements of AfriNIC.

He explains that, although AfriNIC will not be accountable to Icann, the two organisations will need to work together closely for the benefit of the international internet community. Icann will give batches of names and numbers to AfriNIC, and these addresses will then be assigned, through various country organisations, to prospective website owners.

At the recent World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva, the future administration of the internet was one of the most hotly debated topics on the agenda. As Icann has effectively administered internet names and numbers up till now, some countries believed that it should continue on as before.

The opposite end of the spectrum argued that since airwaves are international assets, they should not be administered by an organisation with links to one specific country. Icann opponents have deep reservations about the organisation's genesis as a not-for-profit corporation set up by the United States Department of Commerce.

The South African government has been one of the harshest critics of Icann following an acrimonious confrontation with the local internet society. The South African dispute perfectly mirrored the international impasse. In South Africa, the .za domain had been administered by an individual -- Mike Lawrie -- with the support of the internet society, but government said that an independent, accountable organisation should run the domain name.

The South African government eventually won the battle when a dedicated dot domain name authority (DNA) was set up to administer the internet in South Africa.

South Africa, and other opponents of the current role played by Icann, believe that a dedicated agency should be set up within the United Nations framework to take over the functions of Icann.

Tarek Kamal believes that it is not necessary to set up a special UN agency to run the internet, but he does believe that Icann should be more visibly delinked from the United States government. He also says the not-for-profit organisation should be more transparent.

As Icann will be holding its annual meeting in Cape Town in December, its management believes it is important to raise the profile of the organisation in South Africa and to explain its role. Paul Verhoef, vice-president of policy development support at Icann believes that South Africans would be far less confrontational towards his administration if there was greater clarity about its functions.

He aims to visit South Africa ahead of the meeting in December in order to raise awareness of the conference and of the role Icann really plays in running the internet. - Highway Africa News Agency