Authored by:
Sofia Silva Berenguer, RPKI Program Manager, NRO
The ICP-2 created in 2001, identifies the criteria for an organisation seeking to become a new RIR. In October 2023, the Address Supporting Organization Address Council (ASO AC) was asked by the NRO Executive Council to update the ICP-2. As a next step, the ASO AC in consultation with its stakeholders worked on the proposed principles document which includes the core principles to be included in the next ICP-2 version and this was recently published.
Additionally, on 8 October 2024, a survey was launched by the NRO seeking community feedback from all the RIR communities on those core principles. This survey is open until 19 November 2024 and we strongly encourage the Internet community in the AFRINIC region to fill out the questionnaire and have your footprint towards strengthening the stability and accountability of the RIR ecosystem.
Regional Internet Registries will also be holding informative sessions in their respective communities about the ICP-2 review process each individually in their Public Meetings. In this context, the AFRINIC webinar ’’ Navigating the ICP-2 Review Process'' was recently organised and successfully concluded with 138 participants attending the online session. This informative and interactive session helped the Internet community understand the ICP-2 review project from the start to its implementation. The session held insightful discussions towards understanding how this process works and helped the audience understand the expected benefits as well as ongoing challenges in the ICP-2 Review process.
Learn more about the ICP-2 Review Process by viewing the AFRINIC webinar recording here.
Moving forward, the ICP-2 Review Process will carry on with its next stages, as highlighted below.
Q4 2024
The public consultation with the RIR communities is open until 19 November 2024. Since ICANN has a role in the accreditation of RIRs, its community is also invited to comment. ICANN is therefore also launching its own public consultation in parallel to the work mentioned above.
Q1 2025
From January 2025 until April 2025, the NRO NC will be working on a draft revised policy based on the input received on the principles document through the questionnaire.
Q2 2025
In April 2025, the NRO NC will publish a first draft policy of the RIR requirements. This draft will also be subject to community review.
Q3 and Q4 2025
By September 2025, the NRO NC expects to have revised the draft policy based on the review by the community and to provide a final document report of policy for the NRO EC and ICANN Board consideration. If more consultation is needed, the timeline may be extended. At the conclusion of this process, we should be able to defend the accountability of the RIR system and of course, provide members of the RIR communities with the reassurance that their RIR will remain capable of shouldering its responsibilities and that the Joint Internet Registry will be stable and reliable.
AFRINIC's unwavering commitment to knowledge-sharing and capacity-building is evident in this program's success. The "Zero to Certified IPv6 in 21 Days" workshop is a shining example of how online learning can transcend geographical boundaries and equip a global community with the tools to shape the future of the internet. As we move towards a world increasingly reliant on IPv6, initiatives like this pave the way for a more connected, innovative, and inclusive digital future.
What degree of diversity is acceptable or even welcome? What aspects of the RPKI system need to be more consistent? Please share your thoughts on this with us!
While we work with the community to clearly define what a single, global RPKI system would look like, we will start working on improving some other aspects of the RPKI system — namely robustness and security.
We plan to focus on better measuring the robustness of the RPKI system as a whole by agreeing on the aspects of robustness that should be measured, and clearly documenting the current status and any relevant planned development initiatives for each RIR regarding those aspects, so that in the future we can make this information public in a uniform way.
What aspects of the robustness of the RPKI system would you see value in knowing more about? Please let us know!
We also want to enhance the security consistency of the RPKI system across the different RIRs by establishing a baseline, working with the guidance of security experts on setting the minimum security requirements, and identifying the gaps per RIR, so we can then prioritize those gaps and work towards closing them.
Finally, and where a lot of my focus will be as a Program Manager, we will work to keep the technical community informed and engaged throughout the program and to address RPKI-related concerns in a coordinated way. I will soon be working on validating some assumptions. Please let me know if you would like to volunteer to participate in interviews or other forms of user research activities.
What are your main challenges around deploying RPKI? Have you created Route Origin Authorizations (ROAs)? Have you set up Route Origin Validation (ROV) in your routers? What are your main concerns about the RPKI system as it stands today? Please get in touch and share your thoughts with us!
