The African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC), the continent’s cornerstone in internet infrastructure, now stands at a breaking point. Governance failures, legal disputes and geopolitical pressures have pushed it toward institutional collapse. To secure Africa’s digital future, a continent-wide recommitment to reform, sovereignty and resilience is urgently needed.
Since its founding in 2005, AFRINIC has played a pivotal role far beyond allocating internet protocol (IP) addresses and number resources – it provides critical internet infrastructure services, including Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI), Domain Name System (DNS) root server coordination, and capacity-building programmes that secure Africa’s routing integrity and operational resilience.
Yet today, AFRINIC is grappling with a crisis that threatens its very existence – an institutional breakdown fuelled by legal battles, governance gaps and rising geopolitical tensions. As someone who has followed this story from both inside and outside – most notably through my previous commentary, “AFRINIC case narration and the way forward” I find myself returning to the same questions raised by the broader internet governance community: what went wrong, and how can we fix it? The answers lie not only in technical solutions but in reclaiming African digital sovereignty before it’s too late.