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Cybercity, Ebene, Mauritius, 17 October 2019

After the resignation of AFRINIC’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), it was announced during the 2019 Annual General Members’ Meeting (AGMM) that took place on June 2019 in Kampala, Uganda, that the recruitment process for the next CEO would be initiated immediately.

It was also decided that AFRINIC enlist the services of an experienced and reputable recruitment firm to lead the process to ensure a professional, independent and transparent exercise. FedAfrica was consequently hired to undertake the exercise. The Board of Directors also constituted a CEO Search Committee made up of Board Members to oversee the process.

However, following the persistent concerns regarding the recruitment of the next CEO, the Board of Directors wishes to state the following:

  1. The recruitment process for AFRINIC’s next CEO is ongoing and the position will be filled soon as per the revised timelines issued on 17 August 2019 (please see the timelines at: https://afrinic.net/2019-08-17-revised-timelines-for-afrinic-ceo-search).
  2. FedAfrica, the firm hired by AFRINIC to lead the recruitment exercise, shortlisted six applicants for online interviews. The CEO Search Committee attended the interviews as observers. Thereafter, the three best candidates were invited for face-to-face interviews in Mauritius on 11 and 12 October 2019.
  3. The interview sessions were managed by the Chair of the CEO Search Committee in the presence of all AFRINIC Board Members as evaluators and Mrs Deffa Ka, the Manager of FedAfrica, as an observer.
  4. The interview with each candidate lasted two hours. The first thirty minutes were reserved for a presentation which the candidates were asked to prepare on a Roadmap proposal for AFRINIC. The following ninety minutes were devoted to an exchange between the candidate and the Board Members. One Board Member declared a conflict of interest during the interview of a candidate from his country and recused himself from that session.
  5. After each interview, each Board Member was asked to individually evaluate the candidate by filling a scorecard. At the end of the third and last interview, all scorecards were collected, followed immediately by a meeting of the Board Members who participated in the interview sessions. During the meeting, each Member commented and explained their scores and overall recommendations relative to their ranking of the candidates interviewed. 
  6. The Chair of the CEO Search Committee filed the report of the interview sessions, detailing the recruitment process and the scores for each candidate. The report was then handed over to the Board of Directors for further deliberations.
  7. The leakage of the name of one of the candidates by a Board Member happened on Saturday, 12 October 2019, after all the interviews and the work of the Committee had been concluded. 
  8. On Sunday, 13 October 2019, the Board of Directors, held its meeting to discuss the leakage. The Member concerned, Mr. Robert Ford Nkusi, the Eastern Africa representative who was also the Board Vice-Chairman, admitted being responsible for the leakage and offered his resignation for divulging confidential Board deliberations in breach of the non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Mr. Nkusi’s resignation was accepted by the Board of Directors (via Resolution 201910.525 which states that: WHEREAS the Board has taken cognisance of the letter of resignation of Mr Robert Ford Nkusi as Board Member; RESOLVED to accept the said letter and thank Mr Robert Ford Nkusi for his contribution to AFRINIC). The decision was immediately communicated to AFRINIC members on Sunday, 13 October 2019.
  9. The Board of Directors again met on Sunday, 13 October 2019, to consider the report and recommendations of the CEO Search Committee. They adopted the report via resolution 201910.527. Resolution 201910.527 states: WHEREAS the Board has considered the report of the CEO Search Committee; RESOLVED to accept the recommendation of the CEO Search Committee relative to the appointment of the Chief Executive Officer of AFRINIC Ltd.
  10. The Board of Directors selected the next possible CEO based on the highest aggregate score. The name of the next CEO will be announced once contractual negotiations are finalised.

We hope the above puts to rest concerns raised by AFRINIC members, the Internet community and others.

 

Resignation of Director, Finance and Accounting

The Board would also like to announce that Mr Patrisse Deesse has resigned from his position as Director, Finance and Accounting. He is currently serving notice until 7 January 2020. He is also currently serving as AFRINIC’s Interim CEO, a position he will relinquish once the next CEO assumes duty.

The Board will commence the recruitment process for a new Director, Finance and Accounting in due course.

 

Signed

Dr. Christian D. Bope

Chairman, AFRINIC Board of Directors

 

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AFRINIC is 1.85 million /32s IPv4 away from Phase 2 of IPv4 exhaustion

As of 16 October 2019, AFRINIC has 3.9 million /32s addresses in the available IPv4 pool. We are now 1.85 million /32s addresses away from the /11 threshold which will trigger Phase 2 of IPv4 exhaustion. Consequently, we expect to reach Phase 2 of IPv4 exhaustion by the end of this year.

AFRINIC is still managing Internet number resources as per the requirements outlined in existing policies (the "Phase 1") but this will change as soon as the threshold for "Phase 2" is reached. The AFPUB-2010-v4-005: IPv4 Soft Landing community-developed policy can be found here: www.afrinic.net/library/policies/697-ipv4-soft-landing-policy

AFRINIC's available inventory of IPv4 space is updated daily at https://afrinic.net/stats/ipv4-pool

 

GUIDANCE FOR MEMBERS

All AFRINIC Resource Members are encouraged to get acquainted with AFPUB-2010-v4-005: IPv4 Soft Landing Policy, available at https://afrinic.net/policy/manual#Soft-Landing

In addition to the policy, please refer to the communique, dated 19 August 2019, announcing AFRINIC's approach of Phase 2 of IPv4 Exhaustion: https://www.afrinic.net/2019-08-19-afrinic-approaches-ipv4-exhaustion-soft-landing-phase-2

To ensure timely evaluation of all Internet number resource requests, members are requested to ensure that:

 

REQUEST HANDLING

Applications are processed on a first-come-first-served basis. While processing Incomplete resource requests applications, the applicants will be informed of the pending supporting information and evaluation shall be concluded once the applicant has provided all the required information. Upon conclusion of the evaluation, the resource requests will undergo a review by a second IP Resource Analyst and Registration Services Manager.

Fairness, consistency and due diligence shall be the highest priority of AFRINIC during this final countdown to Soft Landing Phase 2. AFRINIC will strive to respect the Service Level Commitment of two working days when processing the resource requests tickets.

AFRINIC has implemented an approval delay to ensure that the requests are correctly evaluated. The final approval of the prefix size shall be done in the correct order by the Registration Services Manager. It will also enable AFRINIC to find any undelegated prefixes. All final approvals shall happen on a Friday.

Once the resource requests have been approved, AFRINIC shall proceed and invoice the applicant based on the type and size of the approved prefix. The approved prefix will be reserved for up to 45 days, awaiting the payment of the invoiced amount. For new membership applications, the duly filled and signed Registration Service Agreement(RSA) must also be sent to AFRINIC within the same 45 days. If the payment and/or the RSA are not received within 45 days, the reserved resource will be returned to the available pool and the applicant will need to submit a new request.

 

CRITERIA FOR THE START OF EXHAUSTION PHASE 2

Section 5.4.3.1 of the CPM specifies the following criteria for the end of Phase 1 and the start of Exhaustion Phase 2:

"Allocations and assignments will be made from the Final /8 or from any other IPv4 address space available to AFRINIC until no more than a /11 of non-reserved space is available in the Final /8. At this point, the Exhaustion Phase 2 will begin. For the avoidance of doubt, all applications will be in the process at this point will be evaluated as per the new policy."

AFRINIC will implement the specified criteria as follows:

  1. Exhaustion Phase 1 ends and Exhaustion Phase 2 begins when AFRINIC has no more than one /11 of non-reserved IPv4 space available in the final /8. (CPM section 5.4.3.1.) The policy does not specify whether the /11 must be contiguous, or may be made up of multiple smaller blocks adding up to the same amount of space.
  2. AFRINIC's interpretation is that the /11 may be made up of multiple smaller blocks. Accordingly, Exhaustion Phase 2 will begin when the available non-reserved space in the final /8 is no more than 2,097,152 IP addresses (the same amount as a /11), regardless of how the available addresses are arranged in contiguous or discontiguous blocks. Nevertheless, AFRINIC will endeavour to keep a contiguous /11 set aside for as long as reasonably feasible.
  3. When AFRINIC approves a request for IPv4 resources that cannot be fulfilled from the IPv4 address space available (except the last /11) in the AFRINIC pool, Phase 2 of IPv4 Exhaustion shall be triggered. If an application on the pre-approved list cannot be satisfied in full, the applicant will have the option of either getting an amount of IPv4 addresses that are as close as possible to the requested block or receive up to a /22 from the pool reserved for Phase 2.

 

NO GUARANTEE OF AGGREGATION OR CLEANLINESS

AFRINIC does not guarantee that the IP space to be delegated to the members will be aggregated. For example, an organisation requesting a /17 IPv4 may receive multiple prefixes, the combined total of which will be equivalent to a /17 IPv4.

AFRINIC shall also issue recovered space (from resource returns and revocations). These resources have been cleaned up (no route objects or routing advertisements) but could be listed in IP-based blacklists. Members receiving such blocks will be notified.

 

CHANGES IN EXHAUSTION PHASE 2

When Exhaustion Phase 2 begins, most current IPv4 policies continue to apply, but certain changes take effect.

  • Minimum IPv4 Allocation or Assignment shall be /24. (CPM section 5.4.3.2.)
  • Maximum IPv4 Allocation or Assignment shall be /22. (CPM section 5.4.3.2.)
  • No explicit limit on the number of times an organisation may request additional IPv4 space. (CPM section 5.4.4.)
  • Allocation/Assignment period (planning window) is eight (8) months. (CPM section 5.4.5.)
  • Existing Resource Members are eligible to get additional blocks if 90% efficient usage of all resources has been demonstrated. (CPM section 5.4.6.1.)
  • Use of AFRINIC IPv4 resources outside the AFRINIC service region should be solely in support of connectivity back to the AFRINIC region. (CPM section 5.4.6.2.)

Please see the relevant sections in the Consolidated Policy Manual for more information: https://afrinic.net/policy/manual

 

FUTURE INFORMATION

AFRINIC will issue another communique when Exhaustion Phase 2 begins.

More information:

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