Sunday, November 8, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
AFRICA-TECHNOLOGY: Space Holds One Key To Development
Gumisai Mutume
- Some of the answers to Africa’s development efforts in food security, improved communications and the management of natural resources are in space research and technology.
Investing in space technology and tailoring existing space research to Africa’s needs has tremendous potential for the continent, said an expert attending the Second United Nations Regional Conference on Space Technology for Sustainable Development in Africa here.
The region has slowly realised the tremendous potential of space technology, but, as in a number of other sectors, space research does not receive adequate attention from policy makers who opt to concentrate on more tangible development issues, said Adigun Ade Abiodun, an expert on Space Applications in the Vienna- based U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs.
Since it began in 1971, this office has been the primary vehicle through which the United Nations has worked to increase policy makers’ awareness of the benefits of space technology.
It has however had limited success in Africa.
More than 100 delegates are attending the Nov. 4-8 meeting which has drawn experts from all over the world, including the European Space Agency and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
The meeting will focus on the steps needed to enable the continent to gain from programmes in communication systems, climate research, ocean observation and land and forestry inventory.
South Africa currently leads the way in space research on the continent. It formed a working committee in 1993 to look at areas of co-operation with the United States in civilian space ventures. It also has an interest in launching its own satellites.
“South Africa has the most vibrant programme in space science and technology in Africa,” the country’s Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin said. “The only remote-sensing ground receiving station on African soil today is west of Pretoria.”
Remote sensing is defined as gathering information about an object without being in direct contact with it. This technology enables scientists to study environmental changes over time and across regions to establish correlations with other factors such as population growth or farming methods.
For instance, while desertification affects one sixth of the world’s population and one quarter of the total land area, little is known about its processes. Remote sensing systems can provide one of the most important sources of information on the earth’s climate system.
“Remote sensing and associated satellite and computer-based technology have developed considerably and still major parts of the developing world suffer from environmental degradation, poverty and disease,” said Indurall Fagoonee, a scientist at the University of Mauritius.
“It is time that efforts are deployed to make these tools available and accessible to the under-developed world,” he added.
Attempts to use the technology have faltered due to lack of funds and expertise.
“Africa cannot participate in these programmes without people, with knowledge. Our pre-occupation is with training, and not education,” said Abiodun, who comes from Nigeria.
While training is merely exposing a person to another’s technology, Abiodun explained, education is the exposure of an individual to the development of concepts which one can then use to develop one’s own technology.
Space technology, according to Abiodun, can assist Africa in many ways — food security, good health, management of natural resources, understanding the environment, energy development, education for all, exchange of information, national security and personal safety.
African countries first came together in October 1993 in Dakar, Senegal to set out a programme of action to develop space technology and research. The Pretoria meeting will review progress made so far and make further recommendations.
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AFRICA-TECHNOLOGY: Space Holds One Key To Development
Gumisai Mutume
- Some of the answers to Africa’s development efforts in food security, improved communications and the management of natural resources are in space research and technology.
(more…)
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