Egypt inaugurates African Space Agency headquarters in Cairo

By Ibrahim Khazen and Betul Yilmaz

CAIRO, Egypt / ISTANBUL (AA) – Egypt inaugurated the permanent headquarters of the African Space Agency in Cairo on Sunday.

“This step is a milestone in Africa’s joint action and a paradigm shift in the possession of future tools, especially in the fields of technology and politics of outer space,” Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said in a speech.

He said the space agency seeks to overcome African challenges “by gathering and analyzing information and providing applied programs in multiple areas, including food security, crop production and distribution, ecosystems and biodiversity, and disease prevention.”

The African Space Agency was established in 2016 to coordinate space cooperation with Europe and other international partners, enhance space missions, and ensure optimal access to space-derived data, services, and products.

In 2019, Egypt was selected as the host country of the space agency by the African Union’s Executive Council.