In 2003, UN-ESCWA formed the Arabic Domain Names Task Force, a team that developed guidelines for an Arabic Domain Names System (ADNS). Also, in 2004, the League of Arab States (LAS) formed the Arab Working Group on Domain Names to study and develop the ADNS from the Arabic-language standpoint. UN-ESCWA and LAS joined hands to streamline the development of the ADNS from an Arabic-language perspective.

However, the Arabic script is not only used by the Arabic language community, but also by other language groups such as the Urdu, Farsi and others. Thus, there’s a dire need for global harmonization of the use of Arabic script in Domain Names. Hence, the Arabic Script in IDNs Working Group (ASIWG) was established, and three meeting were organized in 2008 by UN-ESCWA in partnership with Public Interest Registry (PIR) and Afilias  to discuss all technical, linguistic and policy issues related to the use of the Arabic script in IDNs.

The first meeting was held in Dubai during 29-30 March 2008 and resulted in the creation of the Working Group and set the ground rules for cooperation between the different regional and global stakeholders. The second ASIWG meeting was also held in Dubai during 28-29 May 2008, and focused on recommendations regarding the use of numerals and other characters such as <space>, Zero Width Non Joiner (ZWNJ), honorific signs, and the use of diacritics. The third meeting was organized in Cairo during 8-9 November 2008 and focused also on the use of numerals, character variants, and the discussion of control characters such as the ZWNJ.

In order to continue efforts started in 2008 and to decide upon pending matters for the Arabic script use in Domain Names, the ASIWG is currently organizing its fourth meeting, ASIWG-IV, on 1-3 April 2009 in Amman, Jordan, in cooperation with the Jordanian National Information Technology Center (NITC).