Hi Alice,

Thank you for such a detailed and thought-provoking article. I’ll admit it took me a bit of work to untangle all the acronyms and governance structures — I even enlisted some AI help to map the pieces together — but the bigger picture has become much clearer.

If I understand correctly, your concern is about the potential for political capture of AFRINIC, under the guise of multistakeholder governance, with Smart Africa and ICANN participating in reforms that could allow government endorsement to override community decisions. This threatens not just African internet governance but sets a precedent for the global RIR system, where the same principles of neutral, community-driven technical coordination should apply everywhere.

It seems the issue isn’t about governments having a legitimate role in oversight or policy, but about preserving the independence of the core infrastructure — the “plumbing” of the internet — so that no single political coalition can control who gets online or how the network operates. Your argument about why this would be a dangerous precedent if accepted in Africa first resonates strongly.

Thank you for highlighting this tension between political ambitions, development goals, and the need to maintain technical neutrality and multistakeholder principles. I appreciate the clarity you bring to a topic that can seem administrative or low-risk, but whose implications are anything but.