By Nick Perkins | From SciDev.Net

In October 2015, African science and education ministers adopted the continent’s first space policy. The accompanying strategy is due to be ratified by heads of state at the African Union summit later this month.

The hope among the ministers is that this strategy will prove as successful as India’s space commitment: in September 2014, India became the first country in the world to put a spacecraft, the Mangalyaan orbiter, into Martian orbit at the first attempt.

India’s progress in space exploration has opened a new front in public campaigns for overseas development assistance, with donors being forced to justify the need when a country can afford spacecrafts. Africa’s space strategy will further stretch the capabilities of public campaigners as the African Union sets out to prove that space science is no longer the preserve of high-income countries.

“These commitments to space science are suggestive of states that want advice and technical know-how, not money or handouts.”

The African space strategy supports building technological capacity in states not nearly in the same income bracket as India or China. This means that development charities working in Africa will need to argue that not only can development lead to aerospace capability, which is how most people think anyway, but also that space technology can make a contribution to development. This, in turn, suggests that development agencies need to start rehearsing the benefits of space technology for development outcomes.

Ultimately this means a new frontier of collaboration between science, tech entrepreneurs and development practitioners — and NGOs may soon be expected to offer project ideas that join up national space programmes with more traditional programmes. Take health and sanitation: NGOs running programmes on this can expect to be asked to demonstrate space-related expertise, for instance in using satellite data to predict water shortages and how to improve access to water.

But there is also a deeper, more political issue here that questions the very notion of what constitutes a development project. These commitments to space science are suggestive of states that want advice and technical know-how, not money or handouts. This would make space-related development about providing eye-level partnerships instead of traditional aid.

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