Space for Africa

We spoke recently with the IAF Executive Director, Philippe Willekens about upcoming initiatives in regards to space and Africa in the context of the 62nd International Astronautical Congress, Cape Town.

The IAF has taken an initiative together with the Cape Town Local Organising Committee to make IAC 2011 the most important milestone as possible for the development of space on

the continent of Africa.

Since Cape Town won the bid to be the 2011 International Astronautical Congress host, we have been monitoring and helping to coordinate all those who have an interest in space in Africa.

To start off, a conference “Space for the African Citizen”, organised during the Belgian presidency of the EU, was held in Brussels on 16 September 2010. This high-level conference (political, scientific and industrial) demonstrates the contribution of space to the general development of Africa, to the benefit of its citizens. It confirmed the usefulness of space tools for the African continent socio-economic development and resources management.

The European Space Agency (ESA) included the output of the high-level conference

“Space for the African Citizen” as an item on the agenda of the Space Council (joint meeting of the EU Council and the ESA Ministerial Council), also in Brussels on 25 November 2010. Indeed, ESA has also been supporting a number of activities being organised on the 2010-2011 period with a special focus on Africa (e.g. joint ESPI/Eurisy and IAA conferences).

Some of these ideas were taken forward to the 3rd Africa–EU Summit of Heads of States in Tripoli, Libya on 29-30 November 2010. This meeting had a special focus on GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) in Africa. Tripoli Declaration

Our partner, the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) organised the “IAA-Nigeria International Symposium on the Equatorial Plane: Attributes and Characteristics” in Abuja, Nigeria, 30 November – 2 December 2010 and another conference the week after, focused on small satellites (in Cameroon, 3-4 December 2010).

The output and recommendations of the different events being organised the months preceding the 62nd International Astronautical Congress in Cape Town will feed a special programme of activities taking place the week before the IAC, under the common topic “Space Serving Development in Africa”. These events will bridge the 4th African Leadership Conference on Space Science and Technology for Sustainable Development (ALC), Nairobi, Kenya, and the 62nd IAC. Their output will contribute directly to the highlevel African Space Summit to be organised the first day of the 62nd IAC on 3 October 2011.

With all these initiatives in place with the IAF playing a major role in many, it is imperative to continue to develop 'Space for Africa' with help from Africans themselves.