DotConnectAfrica Trust (DCA) is an independent non-profit, non-partisan organization founded in 2006. The organization was incorporated in Mauritius with its main charitable objectives to: (a) for the advancement of education in information technology to the African society and access to internet resources; and (b) in connection with (a) to provide the African society with a continental Internet domain name by sponsoring, establishing, and operating a new Top Level Domain (TLD) ".africa" for purposes of branding Africa on the Internet.
As of 2023, the DCA Trust runs the Miss.africa digital rebranded as Fempower and DCA Corporate tech boot camp programs under the DCA Digital Academy umbrella. These programs under DCA Digital Academy have won various accolades, including the 2022 CEO Today Awards.
Governance Structure According to the organization website, the governance model is to be adapted from Africa's development policy model augmented with other geo-TLD models. Public Policy consideration will include direct input from African policy makers, including the African Union, Economic Commission for Africa and African Development Bank on policy matters.
Initiation of .africa Sophia Bekele, director of DotConnectAfrica, has undertaken internet and ICT policy-level work with various UN Agencies prior to being appointed to ICANN to serve as a member of the gNSO Council (from 2005 to 2007). The gNSO counsel oversights the new gTLD [generic Top-Level Domains] policy development process (PDP) for ICANN. In 2006, Bekele initiated the .africa TLD proposal at ICANN and announced her organization's intention to make a bid for the .africa TLD during the Paris ICANN International meeting, addressing the stakeholders.
Endorsement to DCA DCA is the first to present and get endorsement of the DotAfrica (.africa) gTLD initiative to several inter-governmental bodies in Africa, such as the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), and the African Union Commission (AUC) under African Union. The UNECA is the regional economic development body of the United Nations in Africa. It helps the AU meet its strategic objectives in the areas of knowledge management and sharing, technical implementation capacity, studies, and research, the results of which are disseminated to different African countries to help them in policy formulation, implementation of economic development goals and objectives, and capacity building.
DCA then received an endorsement for its DotAfrica (.africa) initiative from the UNECA economic grouping, which has all the African countries as its member states. DCA also presented and clarified the DotAfrica (.africa) initiative to the African Union Commission and, after working closely with AU officials, received an early endorsement in support of its gTLD proposal in 2009.
DCA also received another endorsement from key organizations of the global public internet such as Internationalized Domain Resolution Union (IDRU) which deals with global multi-language initiatives and whose members also contributed to the ICANN IDN policy process.
Yes2dotAfrica Global Campaign After the approvals by the Pan African institutions, DotConnectAfrica then launched and run a 6-year successful "Yes2dotAfrica" global awareness campaign as an ongoing effort to create awareness of the benefits of a dotAfrica name and do a public outreach. This campaign initiative, also part of DCA's Trust program is meant to give Africa a regional identity and global presence. The Campaign was first launched in East Africa during the 2010 AITEC East Africa ICT Summit held from 7–8 September 2010 in Nairobi, Kenya. Sophia Bekele, the executive director, DotConnectAfrica made the announcement during the summit in her Keynote speech Since, the Yes2dotafrica campaign has gained recognition and been given credence as a platform for advocacy of the benefits of DotAfrica gTLD and technology transfer and received a very high number of global media coverage
In December 2011, DCA reported that over 3600 potential registrants had preregistered with DCA as part of its promotional campaign jointly with United Domain. DCA also said in its application to ICANN that, if granted the right to administer the .africa TLD, DCA would set prices at levels competitive with the popular .com TLD:about $10 for the domains
Other trust programs identified by DCA include Miss.africa, Generation.africa and driving the capacity of the African ccTLDs.
Registry Services Strategic and Industry Partnerships DotConnectAfrica had set up an affiliate DCA Registry Services Ltd. in Nairobi, Kenya, for the running of the registry operation. The DCA registry intended to channel surplus resources gained from the .Africa registry operation to sponsor foundations that will cater to various charitable projects, including the already launched miss.africa digital and generation.africa, as well as capacity building for African ccTLDs, with the general objective of improving the African Internet and business landscape. DotConnectAfrica announced in June 2012 that it had made an agreement with CentralNic, a domain name registrar in the United Kingdom, to provide registry services for the .africa TLD. DCA also reached agreements with Safaricom and Fincom to provide co-location for the hardware necessary to run the .africa registry.
(AUC) interest in .Africa and its participation in the ICANN process DCA Trust was the first organization to approach the AUC and get an early endorsement to establish a .africa registry in Africa. However, after the AUC's chairman's office gave an endorsement in lieu of a support letter obtained from the AUC Infrastructure and Energy, that same AUC a few months later turned around and expressed a new interest to get the gTLD for its own benefit. Then, the AUC issued a statement on May 12, 2010, referencing the endorsement letter issued to DCA, and stated that they would work with ICANN and other internet stakeholders to go through an open process to determine the implementation of .africa.
AUC DotAfrica Taskforce Nearly a year later, the AUC organized an "AU DotAfrica Task Force" (members drawn from the African Internet Community, but that did not include DCA members), and issued yet another letter after the prior one to DCA, stating that the AU did not support nor endorse any individual or organization and announced that entities interested must submit their Expression of Interest (EOI), which would serve as the commission's basis for endorsement and selection. DCA criticized AUC's plan to issue an EOI for an endorsement process, stating AUC's objective for accountability and transparency was "hollow and unbelievable," as their EOI fails to acknowledge the previous endorsement issued to DCA by the AUC. Furthermore, DCA pointed out that the EOI process would be biased, as the AU Task Force had already expressed its support for AfTLD during the 2011 annual African ccTLD event in Ghana. Additionally the AU Task force members are the same individuals who have vested interest in the outcome of the .africa as the members are compiled of the individuals that have registered a "dotafrica.org" domain and have claimed to be the competition for DCA's initiative.
DCA Trust Victory against the AUC's attempt to reserve the name .africa for itself During the ICANN 46 International meeting in October 2011 in Dakar Senegal, DCA opposed the reservation of the names .africa, .afrique and .afriqya, suggestions that had been forwarded by the AUC and the AU DotAfrica Task Force, after the ministerial round table that preceded the Senegal ICANN meeting DCA strongly objected to this proposal by voicing its opinion during the ICANN Dakar public forum meeting directly to the ICANN Board as well as in writing to ICANN. DCA stated the addition of these names to ICANN's reserved list would have jeopardized the .Africa applications in the current new gTLD opening from being applied to by any applicant as per ICANN's gTLD guidebookDot Africa soap The reservation of these names to the AUC would have meant that all the applications of the .africa gTLD would have been annulled and there would not be any competition to the .Africa gTLD at the ICANN level, as the names will be reserved for the AUC under a legislative protection for their own use as the AUC is requesting. After a period of time, DCA's requested for a public written response from ICANN on this issue and ICANN responded on March 8, 2012, to the Communiqué presented by the AU officials during the Pre-Senegal Ministerial roundtable and eventually the names were not reserved, making DCA victorious on this issue
Failing to get the name directly reserved by ICANN in response to the Dakar request, in January 2013, the African Union Commission directly appointed a South African company UniForum to administer the .africa TLD on behalf of Africa. This was contested by DCA as quite misleading giving the reason that a firm cannot be selected to administer a domain that has not yet been delegated. Then the African Union Commission issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) and endorsed the same South African company as a preferred applicant for .africa, stating that it went through an international competitive bid in an open and transparent process. DotConnectAfrica stated the AU RFP to select a Registry was issued shortly after Dakar meeting in December and an award was made in January, an incredibly short period of evaluation time compared to what even ICANN registry selection process for an applicant would take nearly 6 –8 months. Additionally, the AU RFP imposed a "community application restrictions" which is not in line with the ICANN RFP for a gTLD applicant, making it impossible for any serious applicant to legitimately participate in the process, except Uniform that was directly recommended by the Chairman of the AFTLD (African Top Level Domain Name organization) who also runs the South African .ZA authority, as well as whose organization is represented at the AU DotAfrica TaskForce. Therefore, DCA contested that the entire RFP should be null and void as it is illegitimate and the members full of conflict of interest. Thereafter, DCA challenged the AU to fully disclose several issues in the greater interest of global public transparency and accountability" and release the details of its (dot)Africa EOI process and the RFP. DCA also submitted this issues to ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee
Application to ICANN The DotAfrica .africa gTLD application was submitted by DCA Trust during the application window that opened on 12 January 2012 and closed on 22 May 2012. DCA hopes to win the mandate from ICANN for the management of the .africa gTLD to enable it administer this resource on behalf of its Pan-African constituency and other stakeholders around the globe.
DCA Trust has made explicit commitment in its .africa application to ICANN that the Trust will establish a full-service Internet registry which will be operated by DCA Registry Services Ltd. in accordance with the technical and operational criteria and other specifications stipulated by ICANN in the new gTLD Applicants' Guidebook.