From http://www.biztechafrica.com/article/dca-partners-set-dotafrica-registry-kenya/3278/

DotConnectAfrica Trust said in a statement on 14 June that it had applied for the same geographical string name for ‘Africa’, pronounced as 'DotAfrica'.  It said: “It is important to note that the initial evaluation process will also consider string similarity - and all strings applied for will be reviewed; and applications for the same or similar strings will end up in the same “String Contention Set”. The prescriptions of the ICANN new gTLD Guidebook (Section 2.2.1.1) are quite clear in this regard.

When I first saw the application list I also never thought that .africa and .dotafrica would survive the contention process as separate strings. Apparently this was by design, though I'm not really sure of the rationale; I find it one of the more fascinating quirks of this application round.

- Evan