As a child in Ivory Coast, West Africa, Tidiane Ouattara would gather with friends in his village to stargaze. The group, who dubbed themselves “the Moon Club,” would lay on the ground, looking up at the cosmos.
“We believed we could talk to the moon,” he told CNN in a video interview. “Since that moment, space was a curiosity for me.”
His childhood interest in space never waned, and in 1994 it led him to Canada, where he earned a PhD in remote sensing and geographical information systems. He planned to return to Africa when he finished, but he was dissuaded by a civil war in Ivory Coast and a lack of technology. “There are no computers in the laboratories here,” one mentor said to him, “why are you coming back?”
So, he stayed in Canada, where over the years he worked for several government departments. But he continued to think about the continent where he grew up. “I felt a little bit guilty every single time I met a young African planning to study space,” he said. “It was really giving 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. Early this year, Ouattara became the first president of the African Space Council, which oversees the newly inaugurated 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 the consultancy Space in Africa. The AfSA could help supercharge that growth and improve the lives of Africans in the meantime. “It is a huge opportunity for us,” said Ouattara.
After several years in the making, the AfSA was officially inaugurated in January 2023, and it 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 reach full operationalization, according to Temidayo Oniosun, the managing director of Space in Africa.
“We want to improve our daily lives”
Africa sent its first satellite into orbit more than 20 years ago. But more pressing priorities and a lack of resources has limited progress.
A handful of nations – like Egypt and South Africa – can manufacture satellite technologies, but they rely on foreign-built rockets and overseas 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 faced issues like a lack of access to clean water. Ouattara said that African leaders are now convinced that investing in the space sector can improve terrestrial life.
Africa has around 60 satellites in orbit, which can be used to boost agricultural yields, surveil borders, monitor water quality, and prevent illegal mining and fishing. Better data from Earth observation could unlock more than $2 billion in value for Africa, according to a 2021 report by the World Economic Forum.
Satellites can also enhance connectivity; although internet use is rising, 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 fisherman’s association in Ghana began 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 annually before the system was implemented.
