The Egyptian Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr Khalid Abdul Ghaffar and the Executive Vice President of the Egyptian Space Agency, Dr Mohammed al-Iraqi, held a meeting yesterday with the heads and delegations from five African space agencies (Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Sudan), to discuss the mechanisms for implementing the African Development Satellite project, and to learn about the developments of the plan of work on this project.
The meeting was attended by the Director-General of the Nigeria Space Agency, Dr Halilu Shaba; the President of All Nations University in Ghana, Dr Samuel Doncourt; the acting Director-General of the Kenyan Space Agency, Col Hillary Kipkosgey, the Head of the Space Program at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation in Uganda, Dr James Kasigwa; the Head of Sudan’s Space Program, Dr Mourad Osman; and the Director of the African Development Moon project, Dr Ayman Mahmoud.
During the meeting, the Minister noted that the project was announced at the 7th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (Tikad 7 Japan August 28-30, 2019), stressing the importance of the project in studying the impact of climate change across Africa and what space technology can offer in this area. Furthermore, the project aims to monitor the effects of climate change in Africa and its implications for water scarcity, desertification rate and lack of food. In addition, this meeting was based on the premise of the training programme held within July – August last year to train 16 trainees from five African countries participating in the project.
Also, the Minister stressed the need for this project as part of the continents’ preparation to participate in the International Climate Conference (COP 27), scheduled for November 2022. Similarly, he reaffirmed the Egyptian State’s support for the programme and its full readiness to provide all training and technical support to scientific teams from other African countries.
In addition, the project’s working document was signed during the meeting. This document discusses the role of African countries participating in the project [building different satellite space systems] and forming the administrative and technical committee for the project.
For their part, the heads of African space agencies stressed their full readiness to participate in the project, the importance of this project for what it provides in terms of capacity building for all participating scientific teams; and a means to stay abreast of the impacts of climate changes in Africa.
