Why Africa is doubling down on its space ambitions

(CNN) — As a child in Ivory Coast, West Africa, Tidiane Ouattara would gather with friends in his village to stargaze. The group, who dubbed themselves “the Moon Club,” would lay on the ground, looking up at the cosmos.

“We believed we could talk to the moon,” he told CNN in a video interview. “Since that moment, space was a curiosity for me.”

His childhood interest in space never waned, and in 1994 it led him to Canada, where he earned a PhD in remote sensing and geographical information systems. He planned to return to Africa when he finished, but he was dissuaded by a civil war in Ivory Coast and a lack of technology. “There are no computers in the laboratories here,” one mentor said to him, “why are you coming back?”

So, he stayed in Canada, where over the years he worked for several government departments. But he continued to think about the continent where he grew up. “I felt a little bit guilty every single time I met a young African planning to study space,” he said. “It was really giving me a hard time in my mind.”

Now Ouattara is helping to lead Africa into space. In 2016, he joined the African Union Commission (AUC), where he worked on its space strategy. Early this year, Ouattara became the first president of the African Space Council, which oversees the newly inaugurated African Space Agency (AfSA).

Africa’s space industry could be worth $22.6 billion by 2026, up from $19.5 billion in 2021, according to the consultancy Space in Africa. The AfSA could help supercharge that growth and improve the lives of Africans in the meantime. “It is a huge opportunity for us,” said Ouattara.

After several years in the making, the AfSA was officially inaugurated in January 2023, and it signed an agreement to make Cairo, Egypt its headquarters. The AUC has laid out a six-year implementation plan for the agency, with a budget of more than $35 million to reach full operationalization, according to Temidayo Oniosun, the managing director of Space in Africa.

“We want to improve our daily lives”

Africa sent its first satellite into orbit more than 20 years ago. But more pressing priorities and a lack of resources has limited progress.

A handful of nations – like Egypt and South Africa – can manufacture satellite technologies, but they rely on foreign-built rockets and overseas launch sites, according to Oniosun.

When Ouattara first returned to Africa, he says he fielded questions from officials about why they should care about space when their populations faced issues like a lack of access to clean water. Ouattara said that African leaders are now convinced that investing in the space sector can improve terrestrial life.

Africa has around 60 satellites in orbit, which can be used to boost agricultural yields, surveil borders, monitor water quality, and prevent illegal mining and fishing. Better data from Earth observation could unlock more than $2 billion in value for Africa, according to a 2021 report by the World Economic Forum.

Satellites can also enhance connectivity; although internet use is rising, only 36% of the population had access to broadband in 2022, according to the World Bank Group.

Ouattara points to other tangible benefits. A few years ago, a fisherman’s association in Ghana began providing weather forecasts – based on satellite information – to locals who use traditional canoes that can be dangerous in bad conditions. Ouattara said that from 2017 to 2022, there was only one canoeing death, compared to about 15 to 18 deaths annually before the system was implemented.

Off the coast of Egypt, satellites are being used to detect oil spills so environmental agencies can act fast to limit damage, he said.

Benefits like this may be why interest is growing so quickly. More than 20 countries now have national space programs, and African nations budgeted more than $400 million for the sector in 2024, according to Space in Africa.

“We are not in space to explore the cosmos. We are not in space to go and seek what is happening on Mars and Jupiter,” said Ouattara. “We want to improve our daily lives.”

Creating space for the next generation

Africa’s population is set to grow to at least 2.4 billion people by 2050, per the African Development Bank Group. For Ouattara, that’s a “big market to consume space-derived products.”

He hopes Africans can take the driver’s seat in every part of the space value chain – from building satellites and ground infrastructure to launching satellites to services and creating products based on space information to help Africans manage their daily lives.

“We want to do everything, because we have the right to do everything,” he said. “But we need to prioritize. We must go step by step.”

There are some practical matters for the AfSA to attend to – like finalizing the members of its 10-person council and recruiting a director general who will oversee daily operations – but Ouattara has no doubt about what the priorities should be for boosting Africa’s space industry.

A workforce will need to be trained in everything from space diplomacy and law, to how to build small, affordable satellites. “Our biggest challenge will be human capital,” he said. “It’s not about money.”

From there, work will need to be done to harness the data provided by satellites.

“It’s about better accessibility to high quality data that can provide valuable insights in different areas,” said Oniosun, of Space in Africa. “And then applications upon this data that can actually address critical problems on the continent.”

Experts are hopeful about the impact the new agency will have. While not competing with national agencies, it will create a regulatory framework and coordinate space activities across the continent to enhance efficiency and make it easier for foreign partners, like the European Space Agency, to collaborate with Africa because they can work through the AfSA, instead of approaching countries individually.

It could also help get continent-wide initiatives off the ground, like a constellation of Earth observation satellites that could provide high-resolution imagery for all of Africa, Oniosun said.

The AfSA is “a way of coming together for everyone,” Oniosun added. “A lot of people are really excited about what’s going to come out of the agency.”

Ouattara is working on turning that excitement into concrete opportunities.

“The young people, they’re willing to be in this space era,” said Ouattara. “But we have to build strong curricula and once trained, to use them properly, to create opportunities to employ them.”

Then perhaps the next generation of Africans won’t have to travel to across the world to Canada to make their mark in space.

The-CNN-Wire
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