PUBLIC COMMENT AFRICA TOP LEVEL DOMAINS ORGANIZATION AFTLD welcomes the opportunity to provide input to the ICANN Africa Regional Plan for fiscal years 2021 - 2025. We acknowledge and appreciate collaborative efforts and support from the global stakeholder engagement team that has resulted in significant improvement of the Domain Name industry in Africa. More than 95 % of African ccTLD registries are completely automated and are currently focused on becoming sustainable entities as they grow local domain name system markets. Furthermore, a study conducted by AFNIC the French ccTLD in 2019 indicated that the Africa Region indicated the highest growth in registrations despite the small zone size of the ccTLDs, a testament of the fruits of the collaborative efforts. Africa ranks third regionally in terms of ccNSO membership with an increasing number of ccTLDs joining the ccNSO to learn best practices from developed ccTLD with the primary objectives of being on par with global best practices. Specifically we are grateful for the support and collaboration that has seen the African ccTLDs build their capacity in the following areas: Technical (Implementation of the Domain Name Security Extension System -(DNSSEC) Partnership in the planning and organization of the Africa Domain Name System Forum from 2013 - 2020 Support in registrar and reseller development. Support in research (Africa Market Study, ongoing efforts to develop a DNS observatory) We call upon ICANN to consider the following issues as it implements in Regional Strategy for financial years 2021 - 2025 Dedicate more financial resources to the global stakeholder engagement team in Africa for supporting ccTLD development in the region particularly in capacity building. Dedicate more financial resources to the global stakeholder engagement team for stakeholder engagement to support our efforts as the regional organization in encouraging governments to embrace best practices in management of ccTLD and new TLDs in general with an emphasis on public private partnership based models for ccTLD and 3 R (Registry, Registrar Registrant models) for new TLDs Strengthen the capacity of the Nairobi hub to engage key stakeholders drawn from government, private sector, technical community and academia across the African continent on the role of ICANN and the Domain Name System for Social and Economic development.. Thank you for your consideration secretariat@aftld.org www.aftld.org