The Europe - Africa connection in space - Part 1
The ties between Europe and Africa are numerous. The close and complicated historical, cultural and geographical ties colour the backdrop of cooperation and collaboration. The 2000 Cotonou Agreement, which followed the Lomé Convention of 1975, formalised the partnership between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP).
Over the last few decades, this partnership has been further strengthened through new political commitments and trade agreements. Since the establishment of the African Union (AU) in 2002, Africa together with the European Union (EU) have worked to develop common political strategies, policy documents and roadmaps as a basis for cooperation. Included in these are the 2005 “EU and Africa: Towards a Strategic Partnership,” the “Joint Africa-EU Strategy” in 2007 and the 2008 “The Africa-European Union Strategic Partnership.” More recently, in 2017, the European Commission unveiled the “Africa-Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investment and Jobs” to further deepen the EU’s economic and trade relationship with Africa through investment and job creation.
Currently, relations between Africa and the EU take place in the context of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) which was adopted in Lisbon in 2007. This extends to Africa’s efforts in space. Under the First Action Plan (2008-2010), cooperation on science, information society and space were identified as one of the core priority areas, with cooperation on space applications and technology specifically highlighted. This priority area was further solidified by the Second Action Plan (2011-2013) of the JAES in Tripoli in 2010.
Under these Action Plans, key areas were highlighted to focus on, including:
Developing concrete joint cooperation initiatives in selected areas
Facilitating humanitarian aid operations and improving security of populations
Improving the management of natural resources, living conditions of populations and promote sustainable development
These actions were segmented by domains of Earth Observation, Satellite Navigation, Satellite Communication and Space Science/Astronomy.
More recently, the European Commission (EC) and the European External Action Service (EEAS) presented a joint communication 'Towards a comprehensive Strategy with Africa', reaffirming the importance of space data and technology.
This is part one of two of the EU-Africa connection in space.
Earth Observation
On the Earth observation (EO) front, the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) and Africa programme is the main vehicle for EU-Africa cooperation. The Maputo declaration in October 2006 called upon the EU to plan an extension of the GMES Europe Initiative (now Copernicus) to Africa and ACP countries. This declaration aimed to provide African decision makers with the necessary tools to pursue sustainable management of resources in their regions and was the start of a mutual commitment of cooperation which was confirmed in the Lisbon Declaration (December 2007).
Subsequent Africa-EU interactions (i.e. the 3rd Africa-EU Summit in 2010, EU-Africa Partnership 8, and the EU-AU Space Troika) reiterated the activities on GMES & Africa and pursued the process initiated at the Lisbon Summit.
The GMES & Africa programme aims to enable the use of space systems and remote sensing applications for sustainable development in Africa, simultaneously reinforcing African local capacity and ownership in space technologies. It focuses on developing African EO capacities in several key areas, including natural disasters, food security and rural development, long-term management of natural resources, water resource management, and impacts of climate variability and change. While nine thematic areas were prioritised (natural resources, water resources, marine & coastal areas, food security & rural development, climate variability & change, disaster risk reduction, health, conflict & political crisis, and infrastructure & territorial development), only the first three have been validated thus far (and agreed to be implemented at the 4th Africa-EU Summit in April 2014).
One of the major building blocks of GMES & Africa was the Monitoring for Environment and Security in Africa (MESA) project. Launched in 2013, MESA provided powerful decision support tools for natural resources management, environmental and security monitoring, and sustainable development on the continent. Its predecessor AMESD (Africa Monitoring of Environment and Sustainable Development) had already contributed strongly to the development of an important network of partners at the continental and regional levels in Africa as well as with European partners. Other prior EU-funded projects such as IGAD-RS, MTAP, PUMA (Preparation for Use of Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) data in Africa) and TIGER also aimed to improve local capacity in EO and raise awareness among decision-makers. Building on this, the GMES & Africa support programme, funded under the Pan-African Programme (PanAf), aims to implement the outcomes of the 2013 Johannesburg GMES & Africa Validation workshop (concerning the three thematic areas agreed at the 4th Africa-EU Summit), improving EO and creating links with Copernicus.
GMES & Africa’s first phase consists of the Natural and Water Resources Service, and the Marine and Coastal service.
In the frame of GMES & Africa, the African Union Commission (AUC) signed a Cooperation Arrangement with the EC in Brussels on 12 June 2018 to facilitate the AU’s access to Earth observation data from the Sentinel satellites of the Copernicus Programme, with the kick-off taking place recently in August 2020.
Satellite navigation
While most EU involvement has focused on the impact of Earth observation-based projects in Africa, GNSS technologies and services have also featured. The cooperation on satellite navigation and provision of services in Africa was built primarily on the adoption of the Second Action Plan, followed by further declarations in 2010 (e.g. 7th Space Council, 4th EU-Africa Business Forum, etc.), subsequently followed by funding decisions taken by DG DEVCO and the Africa-EU Infrastructure Trust Fund in 2011/12. The creation of the Joint Programme Office (JPO) in 2013, funded by the EU, defined a regional agency responsible for coordinating navigation programmes in sub-Saharan Africa.
Several efforts regarding the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) have been initiated on the African continent. EGNOS is a Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) that improves the accuracy, integrity, and availability of navigation signals.
EGNOS operations have already been introduced in North Africa and the Middle East for aviation through the MEDiterranean follow-Up for EGNOS Adoption (MEDUSA) programme. Two EGNOS Ranging and Integrity Monitoring Stations (RIMS) are installed in Egypt and Morocco to extend EGNOS signal coverage.
In West Africa, coordination and implementation of EGNOS has been conducted by the Agency for Air Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) supported by the JPO through the Africa-EU partnership. The “JAES Roadmap 2014-2017” adopted at the 4th Africa-EU Summit in 2014 included a commitment to provide sustainable and adequate human and financial resources for the deployment of EGNOS in Africa. The SBAS-ASECNA Programme also received support from CNES (The French Space Agency) which, with the added support of Thales Alenia Space, jointly deployed a network of GNSS sensors covering the French-speaking Western Africa Region – known as SAGAIE (GNSS ASECNA Stations for the Analysis of the Equatorial Ionosphere). In September 2020, ASECNA started to broadcast SBAS signals via the NIGCOMSAT-1R satellite.
In southern Africa, the EGNOS Service Extension to SA (ESESA) project (2010) estimated the potential number of users of EGNOS in South Africa with a focus on markets where the potential for improved positioning by EGNOS was the largest. Following the ESESA project, a first EGNOS in South-Africa (EGSA) management meeting was held in Pretoria, South Africa (RSA), in April 2011 in the context of the EU-RSA Space Dialogue. The South Africa National Space Agency (SANSA) was a partner in the two key projects in the region pre-EGSA (SATSA and ESESA, 2010-2013), and this subsequently allowed them to develop a business plan for EGSA deployment which was submitted to the Department of Science and Technology (DST) in South Africa for funding.
South Africa also has experience in hosting and operating GNSS equipment. SANSA operated a demonstration SBAS system under the SBAS Africa project, performed under the IPSP program of the UK Space Agency. Similarly, the South African Air Traffic Navigation Services (ATNS) awarded a tender to install a GNSS monitoring network at eight of their managed airports in the country. ATNS also operate four VSAT networks that connect airports across the continent for aviation operational reasons.
In eastern Africa, the Eastern Africa SBAS ‘Module’ is led by regional communities including the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), with support from JPO.
Kwaku Sumah
Kwaku has been active in the space industry since 2016, working as a consultant for European space institutions and companies with SpaceTec Partners. He has worked on projects across the entire space value chain, including analysis on downstream markets, space debris evolution, planetary defence, and the launch market; as well as an assessment of the European financing landscape and due diligence on space companies. Most recently he worked as the project manager for Galileo Green Lane, an EU response to COVID-19 leveraging GNSS.