by As a child in the Ivory Coast, West Africa, Tidiane Ouattara gathered with his friends in his village to see a star. The group, who called themselves “the Moon Club”, would lay on the ground, looking up into the cosmos.
“We believed we could talk to the moon,” he told CNN in a video interview. “From that moment, space was a curiosity for me.”
His childhood interest in space never waned, and in 1994 he moved to Canada, where he earned a PhD in remote sensing and geographic information systems. He planned to return to Africa when he finished, but was distracted by civil war in the Ivory Coast and a lack of technology. “There are no computers in the labs here,” one mentor told him, “why are you coming back?”
So, he stayed in Canada, where he worked over the years with several government departments. But he kept thinking about the continent where he grew up. “I felt a little guilty every time I met a young African who was planning to study space,” he said. “It gave 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. Earlier this year, Ouattara became the first president of the African Space Council, which oversees the newly formed 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 consultancy Space in Africa. The AfSA could help supercharge that growth and improve the lives of Africans in the meantime. “It’s a great opportunity for us,” Ouattara said.
After several years in the making, the AfSA officially opened in January 2023, and 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 achieve full operation, according to Temidayo Oniosun, managing director of Space in Africa.
“We want to improve our daily lives”
Africa put its first satellite into orbit more than 20 years ago. But more pressing priorities and a lack of resources have limited progress.
A handful of nations – such as Egypt and South Africa – can manufacture satellite technologies, but rely on foreign-built rockets and 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 were facing issues such as lack of access to clean water. Ouattara said African leaders are now convinced that investment in the space sector can improve life on earth.
Africa has about 60 satellites in orbit, which can be used to increase agricultural production, observe borders, monitor water quality, and prevent illegal mining and fishing. Better data from Earth observation could unlock more than $2 billion for Africa, according to a 2021 report from the World Economic Forum.
Satellites can also improve connectivity; Although internet usage is on the rise, 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 fishermen’s association in Ghana started 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 each year before the system was implemented.
Off the coast of Egypt, satellites are being used to detect oil spills so environmental agencies can act quickly to limit damage, he said.
Benefits like these may be why interest is growing so quickly. More than 20 countries now have national space programs, and African nations have 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 don’t have the space to go look for what’s 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, according to the African Development Bank Group. For Ouattara, that is “a big market for consuming products derived from space.”
He hopes that Africans can take the driver’s seat in all parts of the space value chain – from building satellites and ground infrastructure to launching satellites to creating services and products based on space information to help Africans manage daily life.
“We want to do everything, because we have the right to do everything,” he said. “But we have to prioritize. We have to go step by step.”
The AfSA has some practical issues to tackle – such as finalizing the members of its 10-person council and recruiting a director-general to oversee day-to-day operations – but Ouattara is in no doubt about the priorities 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 take advantage of the data provided by satellites.
“It means better accessibility to quality data that can provide valuable insights in various fields,” said Oniosun, of Space in Africa. “And then applications of this data that can address critical problems on the continent.”
Experts are optimistic about the impact of the new agency. While not competing with national agencies, it will create a regulatory framework and coordinate space activities across the continent to improve efficiency and make it easier for foreign partners, such as the European Space Agency, to collaborate with Africa because that they can work through the AfSA, instead. of countries approach individually.
It could also help ground continent-wide initiatives, such as a constellation of Earth observation satellites that could provide high-resolution images of all of Africa, Oniosun said.
The AfSA, Oniosun added, is “a way for everyone to come together”. “A lot of people are excited about what’s to come out of the agency.”
Ouattara is working on turning that urge into concrete opportunities.
“Young people, they are happy to be in this space of time,” said Ouattara. “But we need to build strong curricula and when they are trained, use them properly, create opportunities to employ them.”
Maybe then, just maybe, the next generation of Africans won’t have to travel to Canada across the world to make their mark in space.
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