Dear Colleagues, The following announcement was released by the AfriNIC Board of Trustees. Best regards, -- leo vegoda RIPE NCC Registration Services Manager ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Announcement by the AfriNIC BOT Concerning AfriNIC Host Country Proposals ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ Date: 23 June 2003 ------------------ 1. There was a call for proposals in terms of the hosting proposal document as published on the AfriNIC web site. The BOT received 5 proposals 2 of which were received after the deadline. All the proposals were accepted by the AfriNIC BoT. The proposals are published at http://www.afrinic.org/AfriNIC-Hosting-Proposals.shtml 2. AfriNIC held a public meeting in Kampala on 15 June 2003, where the host country proposals were presented. 3. Having heard the proposals that Board requested that at closed meeting be held to find a consensus on the matter between interested parties. The following were present at that meeting; * Board Members including Nii Quaynor, Richard Bell, Charles Musisi, Theo Kramer and Alan Barrett. * Members Of The Working Group from Montevideo including Sunday Folayan, Brian Longwe, and Anthony Brooks. * Representatives of Host Country Bidders - including representatives from Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, and Mauritius. 4. Those present were are able to agree on the following consensus. As with all compromises the solution did not meet 100% of everyone's expectations, however it was agreed that all parties present found the proposal to be an acceptable and workable one. Notwithstanding the need for cost control and operational efficiency, it was decided that the operational functions of AfriNIC could be effectively divided as follows; a. Administrative Centre. Including legal incorporation, business manager, and, secretariat. b. Training Centre. To co-ordinate and implement all the training activities for AfriNIC. c. Technical Operations Centre. Including hardware & infrastructure facilities. d. Back Up & Disaster Recovery Facility for Technical Operations. 5. The consensus was to allocate these functions as follows: a. Administrative Centre - Mauritius b. Training Centre - Ghana c. Technical Operations Centre - South Africa d. Back Up & Disaster Recovery Centre - Egypt 6. It was agreed that the board should issue revised terms of reference for each of the functionalities so that the successful bidders in each section could produce detailed implementation plans and finalize funding for their respective areas of responsibility. These revised TORs would be discussed with bidders. 7. Subsequent to the Kampala meeting, the AfriNIC Board of Trustees has unanimously voted to ratify the the consensus proposal from the Kampala meeting as described above. Whatever our collective interests and reservations, consensus requires compromise. We have a workable proposal on the table with consensus from the majority of interested parties. That proposal has been ratified by the board and we take this opportunity to inform the community at large of the board's decision. It is our sincere hope that the process will now begin to progress rapidly and we thank the community for their continued support. Yours sincerely, The AfriNIC Board of Trustees