Background

Africa hosts some of the world’s richest ecosystems, biodiversity, freshwater reservoirs and marine resources, which are critical for people’s livelihood, food security and development. Moreover, it has a huge renewable energy potential. At the same time, Africa is home to over 1 billion people and is experiencing accelerating economic growth. It boasts the youngest, fastest-growing middle-class in the world. This creates major opportunities but is also putting huge pressure on natural resources, while climate-related risks are a threat multiplier to long term development on the continent. In a time of COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 and in a time of rapid global digital transformation leading to profound economic, political and societal changes, Africa and the EU face common opportunities and challenges. Putting African and European citizens at the centre between the two continents could take the form of a shared vision based on shared interest.

Policy Framework (Global, EU)

The Paris Agreement makes specific reference to services delivery by calling on parties to strengthen "scientific knowledge, including research, systematic observation of the natural system, in a manner that informs data and services development and supports decision- making". Moreover, the EU’s European Consensus on Development provides the framework for the EU’s implementation of the 2030 SDGs, including the underlying principles of the rights- based approach and gender equality being integrated in all development co-operation. In addition, the Political Guidelines for the European Commission (2019-2024) focus on five priorities including the European Green Deal and Digital and Data Technologies, which are particularly relevant for the GMES & Africa. The European Green Deal foresees to position the EU as a global leader also by strengthening the EU’s green deal diplomacy and promoting ambitious environment, climate and energy policies across the world. Scientific international partnerships, in particular with Africa, will be key to implement the External Dimension of the Green Deal. In the framework of the Africa-Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investment and Jobs, the joint EU-Africa Digital Economy Task Force released recently a report proposing a series of policy recommendations and concrete actions to develop the digital economy and society in Africa, leading to increased investment while protecting workers and consumers’ rights. The Joint Communication Towards a comprehensive Strategy with Africa (JOIN (2020) 4 final) sets five partnerships, three of which are: a partnership for green transition and energy access; a partnership for digital transformation; and a partnership for sustainable growth and jobs.

The Earth Observation sector in Africa has received important support and financing over the past years from Europe and space is an essential element of other related policy and strategic documents including: Space Strategy for Europe, Horizon Europe, Digital, Industry and Space cluster EUMETSAT Strategy “Challenge 2025”, ESA Space19+ and, ESA EO Strategy 2040.

African Union Policy and Strategies analysis

The Agenda 2063 sets the objective that by 2063 “Africa’s unique natural endowments, its environment and ecosystems, including its wildlife and wild lands are healthy, valued and protected, with climate resilient economies and communities”. The African Union Strategies identify development of space products and services as crucial elements to achieve their goals. For instance, the African Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) aims at strengthening institutional capacities, policies and mechanisms to reinforce the resilience at the regional, sub- regional and national levels, including the development of cost effective early warning systems, improved risk assessments and data observation. The African Strategy on Climate Change (under development) aims at developing and enhancing action on climate change adaptation and integrate disaster risk management and reduction into climate change policies and programmes in providing the framework for enhancing preparedness and other disaster management cycles including early warning capacity in the continent including such as through enhanced use of Radar and Earth Observation Systems. In addition, the space will be one of the key pillars of the African Union Blue Economy Strategy (under development) that is the long-term strategy to support sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors as a whole. It will be built on the Africa Integrated Maritime Strategy (2050 AIM Strategy) that was conceived as a tool to address Africa’s maritime challenges for sustainable development and competitiveness. The 2050 AIM Strategy aims to foster more wealth creation from Africa’s oceans, seas and inland waterways by developing a thriving maritime economy and realizing the full potential of sea-based activities in an environmentally sustainable manner. The Abidjan Declaration of November 2018 includes a commitment to invest in the sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems. Many African countries are already leading the transition and the latest African Ministerial Conference on the Environment has shown the ambition of Africa on climate and environment.

Stakeholder analysis

The African Union (AUC) is the key policy conveyor and is at the heart of the interaction between the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and other socio-economic users in Africa, as well as between RECs and Member States policy and decision makers. Regional Economic Communities (RECs) provide political and economic support to their Member States (MS) members and are one of the main final users of space applications. RECs will be at the heart of the interaction between other socio-economic users in their respective African regions. The AUC will work directly with RECs on policy matters involved in the development and delivery of space services applications. AU Member States are among the primary users of space applications. At the country level, information producers interact with the last-mile user. However, most of the countries have the least developed observation networks, inadequate human capacity, inadequate financial resources, and obsolete technologies limiting their capabilities to produce the best services needed by national policy and decision-makers as well as users. The AUC will also support Member States in promoting their national cross-sectoral networks through training and provision of platforms for interaction. End users of space information will include decision-makers belonging to national and local public institutions, research institutions and universities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), farmer and water associations, private sector (e.g. members of the agriculture value chains, insurance funds, companies), and many others parties interested. Final users will depend on the sector of the services to be provided and regional priority sectors. AUC in collaboration with RECs will take the lead in identifying and characterising the users together with their respective needs.

African Outer-Space Flagship

Implementation of the African Outer Space Flagship continues to be guided by the Space Policy and Strategy and promoting stakeholders’ engagement and resulted into National Space Institutions committing their efforts to the implementation of the African Space Program. One of the key implementation legs of the earth observation segment of the African space policy and strategy is the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security and Africa (GMES & Africa).

Genesis of the Programme

The GMES & Africa initiative is the crystallization of the longstanding cooperation between Africa and Europe in the area of space science & technology, which is one of the key priorities of the long-term European Union (EU)- Africa Joint Strategy. 

The Maputo Declaration of October 2006 provided the necessity for the EU-Africa partnership to confirm the commitment to avail European infrastructure and facilities, under the Copernicus programme to Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries. This commitment led to the launch of GMES & Africa process in Lisbon, Portugal, on 7th December 2007 during the 2nd EU-Africa Summit. GMES & Africa aims at promoting the development of local capacities, institutional, human and technical resources for access to and exploitation of EO-based services on an operational basis for sustainable development in Africa. 

Nine thematic chapters were initially identified and agreed on for the Action Plan: (i) Long term Management of Natural Resources; (ii) Water Resource Management; (iii) Marine & Coastal Areas Management; (iv) Food Security and Rural Development; (v) Climate Variability and Change; (vi) Disaster Risk Reduction; (vii) Health; (viii) Conflict and Political Crisis, and (ix) Infrastructure and Territorial Development. The following cross-cutting areas were also identified: (a) Policy and Institutional framework (b) Infrastructure framework (c) Capacity Development framework (d) Financial issues, and (e) Monitoring and Evaluation. 

The African Union and the European Commission  finally agreed on a programme implementing three thematic areas under two services, namely, Natural and Water Resources; and Marine and Coastal Areas, with 23 applications. These first two services were to be built upon the achievements of predecessor programmes which include the MESA, AMESD and PUMA projects across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Phase 1 of the Programme 

GMES & Africa Support Programme phase 1 was signed between African Union Commission (AUC) and European Commission (EC) in December 2016 for a total amount of Euro 30 million for 4 years. 

As results, the GMES & Africa Phase 1 established a Programme Management Unit (PMU). It granted funding to 12 Consortia representing over 122 institutions in 45 African countries involving 20 African private companies and 20 universities and training centres. African institutions have been identified for hosting 12 environmental stations (e- stations) and 188 existing climatological and environmental e-stations have been identified to be maintained. 17 applications dealing with water and or land management, served by 8 consortia (94 institutions) are active in 5 africa regions, and 15 marine and maritime applications delivered by 4 consortia (28 institutions) are active in 4 african regions. 

The delivered services are offered through 10 regional geoportals (7 terrestrials and 3 marine) and cover agriculture, oil pollution, daily forecast of ocean state, potential fishing zone, aquaculture, 15 RAMSAR sites and 10 Wetland development and management plans (DMP), wildlife protection and conservation and water balance monitoring. A Digital Learning Platform (DLP) which contains currently 30 courses has been developed as well as an operational network of 27 African Universities (made up of 15 francophone and 12 anglophone universities) has been established. More than 5000 Africans have been trained and the programme is supporting 30 graduate students in Masters and PhDs as well as it has offered internships opportunities to 11 young Africans through the AUC Youth Volunteers programme.

The achievements of the phase 1 of the Programme 

Phase 2 of the Programme 

The GMES and Africa Phase 2 has started in January 2022 and will end in December 2025. The total investment of the European Commission to this phase is € 24,650,000. 

It involves 8 consortia and it aims to cover the entire supply chain for services on Water & Natural Resources (e.g. land use, wetlands, land, forest resources, etc.) and Marine & Coastal areas (e.g. coastal area monitoring, ship traffic and pollution monitoring, etc.) from access to information, generation and provision of services, and engagement and capacity of users to ensure utilization of these services. The services provided on Water & Natural Resources and Marine & Coastal areas are to contribute to a sustainable management of natural resources. Better access to information and availability of specific tools in these areas are also to contribute to improve adaptation to climate change and to reduce disaster risk. The action is meant to support African organisations, policy-makers and practitioners, to make more effective use of Earth Observation data to develop relevant operational information services to support sustainable management of natural resources and tackling climate change.