Exclusive: Africa ccTLDs grow domains by .5m in 2 years

Exclusive@ITRealms: 

The African country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) has registered half a million domains in the last two years, ITRealms can authoritatively report.

Disclosing this in an exclusive chat with ITRealms, the Vice President for Africa at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Mr. Pierre Dandjinou said in two years, the continent was able to register additional 500,000 domains increase, which precisely happened within the leadership of the outgoing president of ICANN, Mr. Fadi Chehade.

This, he said, was a leap from what was registered invariably by end of 2013 and outside the new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) uptake.

As said by him, African ccTLDs registrations record 1.3 million as the time of filing this report from some 800,000 two years ago.

ICANN Vice president also said this figure not include any new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) uptake, stressing that with the growing interest for domain names and the universal access to the Internet, there is a likelihood that Africans will be increasing registrations in both gTLD and ccTLD.

He cited an instance with South Africa, which has seen an increase of its ccTLD registrations, despite the launch of its new gTLDs like .Durban, .Cape Town or .Johannesburg. 

Nigeria, he said, is also going through a rejuvenation of the ccTLD management with a few bold advances. 

"Of course, there are still many disparities between the different African countries but on the whole, Africa is on the move," he said.

Currently, he said, about 60 per cent of Africa countries are part of the country code Name Supporting Organisation (ccNSO) at ICANN , which shows how much work has been done to garner their membership, and how much work still needs to be done to sign up the remaining countries. 

For him, the aim is not just to get them to join for the sake of numbers, but have them truly understand the importance of meaningful participation in the various working groups to help shape policy. 

"This still remains a challenge, even for those who are already members. How many of them are actively participating? Very few of them indeed, but this requires dedication, time commitment and perseverance,” he said.

 
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Pix: Pierre Dandjinou, ICANN VP for Africa

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