Skip to main content
Resources

Africa Engagement and DNS Forums

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is pleased to announce two back-to-back events in Accra, Ghana, on 9 and 10 December 2025: the Africa Engagement Forum and the Africa Domain Name System (DNS) Forum.

Together, these events will encourage African stakeholders to engage in dialogue on Internet governance, technical innovation, and the future of the DNS. The Africa Engagement Forum (9 December), organized by ICANN and hosted by the Association of African Universities, will focus on regional priorities, ICANN updates, and community perspectives.

The Africa DNS Forum (10 December), organized by ICANN, the Africa Top Level Domain Organization, and the AfRegistrar Association, will feature technical and business discussions on DNS resilience, registry/registrar services, and innovation under the theme "Resiliency of the DNS in Africa." The Ghana Domain Name Registry will host the event.

Read the announcement for more details: https://www.icann.org/en/announcements/details/africa-engagement-and-dns-forums-to-be-held-in-accra-ghana-25-09-2025-en

Event Focus Areas

  • Africa Engagement Forum: Regional stakeholder dialogue, Internet governance, Universal Acceptance, the New gTLD Program: Next Round, and Coalition for Digital Africa updates.
  • Africa DNS Forum: DNS resilience, technical developments, registry/registrar ecosystem growth, and innovations shaping Africa's DNS industry.

Registration

Registration for the Africa Engagement Forum 2025 is now closed.

Agendas

All times are in GMT/UTC — Local Ghana Time

2025 Africa Engagement Forum

09 December 2025 - Movenpick Hotel Accra, Ghana (Hybrid)
Theme: Developing a more active community in Africa

TIME (UTC) SESSION TITLE SESSION DESCRIPTION / SPEAKERS

08:30 – 08:50
  • Arrival / badge collection
  • Remote connections

09:00 – 09:30

(30 min)

Opening Session

Speakers:

  • Pierre Dandjinou | Vice President, Stakeholder Engagement – Africa, ICANN
  • Prof Olusola Bandele Oyewole | Secretary General, Association of African Universities (AAU)
  • Baher Esmat | Vice President, Stakeholder Engagement – Middle East and Managing Director – Middle East and Africa, ICANN
  • Catherine Adeya | Board Member, ICANN
  • Patrick Jones I Vice President, Global Stakeholder Engagement, ICANN

09:30-10:15

(45 min)

Africa Engagement Report
  • Pierre Dandjinou | Vice President, Stakeholder Engagement – Africa, ICANN

10:15-10:45

(30 min)

Break – Group picture – Press Communication

11:00 – 11:50

(50 min)

DNS and Next Round Update: Africa Domain Names space and the next round of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs): challenges and opportunities

This session will provide a status update on ICANN's work regarding the implementation of the next round. Followed by a panel discussion on past experiences in applying for a new gTLD (2012 Round), and expectations and potential opportunities for the African market with regard to gTLDs.

Moderator: Mouhamet Diop | Chair, Afregistrar

Introduction: Bob Ochieng | New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Senior Director, ICANN

Panelists:

  • Albert Kamga | ANTIC
  • Hamza Aboulfeth | Genious Communication
  • Franck Aguibi | Cloud4Africa

11:50 – 12:00

10 minutes break

12:00 – 12:30

(30 min)

Coalition for Digital Africa update

This session will provide a brief update on the status of the Coalition projects and interact with the participants about the program.

June Okal | Stakeholder Engagement Director – East and Southern Africa, ICANN

12:30-13:00

(30 min)

Geopolitical perspective

Elena Plexida | Vice President, Government and IGO Engagement, ICANN

13:00 – 14:00

60 minutes Lunch Break

14:00 – 15:30

(90 min)

ICANN Community Updates

This session will be focused on receiving feedback / reports / status updates including from various Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees on ongoing work, policy development processes, and hot topics relevant to Africa. It is an opportunity to invite the African community to participate on such topics and in working groups. This will be followed by brief updates from the Af*(organizations) leaders.

Moderator: Hadia Elminia | Chair, AFRALO

Presenters:

ICANN SO/AC

  • Christine Arida | Governmental Advisory COmmittee (GAC)
  • Bukola Oronti | At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC)
  • Biyi Oladipo | Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO)
  • Wisdom Donkor | Noncommercial Users Constituency (NCUC)
  • Caleb Ogundele | Not-for-Profit Operational Concerns Constituency (NPOC

Other

  • Brica Abbah | African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC)
  • Nancy Dotse | African Network Operators Group (AFNOG)
  • Mouhamet Diop | Association of ICANN Accredited Registrars in Africa (AfRegistrar)
  • Africa Top Level Domains Organization (AFTLD)
  • Dorcas Mutoni | Africa Women in Technology (AFCHIX)

15:30-16:00

(30 min)

Break

16:00-16:20

(20 min)

Public Technical Identifiers (PTI) session

16:20 – 17:20

(60 min)

Africa Community Forum

During this session, the audience will have a chance to engage ICANN org with a Q&A session touching on various topics of relevance to the African Community.

It's an opportunity for the African community to have a deeper understanding and more focused engagement with the various ICANN functions.

Moderator: Yaovi Atohoun | Stakeholder Engagement & Operations Director – Africa, ICANN

Panelists:

  • Catherine Adeya | Board Member, ICANN
  • Patrick Jones I Vice President, Global Stakeholder Engagement, ICANN
  • Baher Esmat | Vice President, Stakeholder Engagement - Middle East and Managing Director Middle East and Africa, ICANN
  • Pierre Dandjinou | Vice President, Stakeholder Engagement - Africa, ICANN

17:20 – 17:30

(10 min)

Closing remarks

Moderator: Yaovi Atohoun | Stakeholder Engagement and Operations Director – Africa, ICANN

Speaker: Pierre Dandjinou | Vice President, Stakeholder Engagement – Africa, ICANN

18:30

Cocktail Reception

Version 3: Updated on 4 December 2025

2025 Africa Engagement Forum Presentations

For further information on the 2025 Africa DNS Forum please visit: https://dnsforum.africa/
If you have any questions, contact us at [email protected]

Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."