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India must move beyond symbolic MoUs to forge a meaningful and mutually beneficial space partnership with the African Union
Image Source: Getty
On 20 April 2025, the African Space Agency (AfSA) was formally inaugurated, with its headquarters now established in New Cairo City. The AfSA headquarters are located near the Egyptian Space Agency headquarters, effectively giving Egypt, the second-largest African economy, the charge of hosting a major African Union (AU) institution. The inauguration was attended by members of the international space community, with representation from the European Space Agency (ESA), the Italian Space Agency (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the United Arab Emirates Space Agency (UAESA), and the heads of the national space agencies of various AU member countries, including current members of the AfSA.
The Indian space community did not find representation at the ceremony. This absence indicates that India’s space diplomacy with the AU is still finding its footing. The values underlying the foundation of the India-AU relations were articulated in the ‘Ten Guiding Principles for India-Africa Engagement’ announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2018 in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. The Principles reshaped India’s Africa policy towards ‘developing together as equals’. The following developments serve to encapsulate the new vigour that defines India-AU relations:
The values underlying the foundation of the India-AU relations were articulated in the ‘Ten Guiding Principles for India-Africa Engagement’ announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2018 in Uganda’s capital, Kampala.
First, India has been instrumental in bringing the AU to the G20, strengthening the Union’s recognition across multilateral and intergovernmental organisations at par with the European Union (EU). Second, the Indian Mission to the United Nations hosts the Secretariat of the L69 Group of Developing Countries, many of whose members are from the AUa grouping that aims to achieve an enduring and comprehensive restructuring of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Third, India has participated in nearly all UN Peacekeeping missions stationed in Africa, and its economic diplomacy has allowed numerous private and public sector players to help many AU member countries with their security and economic considerations.
India is also a major importer of petroleum, and in the coming year, Africa will be the point of origin of critical minerals for India. New Delhi can facilitate the export of agricultural and financial technologies and know-how for the AU member-nations to attain their long-term goals, particularly those enshrined in Agenda 2063.
However, the Ten Guiding Principles have not been implemented by the Indian public and private sector institutions as a platform for seamlessly engaging with Africa. India’s space programme provides a yet-underexplored avenue for diplomacy.
India’s space outreach to Africa has largely operated through the Ministry of External Affairs and the Department of Space via training projects under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme, with AU member representatives participating in large numbers. However, with changing times, India-AU space diplomacy could have gone beyond the mundane capacity-building of yesteryears and the seldom satellite launches for African countries.
Unlike India, China has significantly advanced its space diplomacy with Africa. It is building major satellite-assembly, testing, integration, and manufacturing facilities for AU-member countries, particularly assisting in the manufacturing and operationalisation of ground stations, engaging in geospatial data-sharing, supporting African-country-initiated space application projects and offering its Beidou satellite navigation services to a host of countries in the continent.
The Ten Guiding Principles have not been implemented by the Indian public and private sector institutions as a platform for seamlessly engaging with Africa.
The EU and AU have built a lasting 25-year institutional partnership. The Maputo Declaration of 2006 generated a strong institutional framework offering African countries access to European space datasets, training programmes, and fund mobilisation for weather, climate and environmental monitoring under the EU’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security for Africa. Europe has shared datasets from its Sentinel satellites under the EU-Africa Partnership on Information, Society, Science and Space. As part of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNS), the ESA provides satellite navigation signals to assist aircraft landing at numerous African airports.
India’s space diplomacy needs some ramping up. India has sent only three attachés from the Department of Space abroad, stationed in Washington, Moscow, and Paris. These were Cold War-era appointments, and little has changed about these postings since. There is now a need for at least two additional space attachè positions: one stationed in Prague, where the European Union Agency for the Space Programme is established, and the second in Cairo, where the AfSA has now come up. With the growing democratisation of space technology, space and emerging tech attachés must be assigned to all the territorial divisions of the Ministry of External Affairs.
The Department of Space’s internationalisation in Africa should follow the Ten Guiding Principles, as New Delhi can no longer afford to be a fence-sitter in space diplomacy.
India’s Department of Space, especially now with a growing private space sector, can engage in comprehensive commercial diplomacy with the AfSA and the space agencies of the AU member countries. The Department of Space’s internationalisation in Africa should follow the Ten Guiding Principles, as New Delhi can no longer afford to be a fence-sitter in space diplomacy. The absence of any high-ranking DoS official at the AfSA headquarters inauguration reflects a lack of clarity and confidence from both sides regarding the trajectory of India-Africa space diplomacy. However, this gap presents an opportunity to move beyond unremarkable space cooperation MoUs and build substantive partnerships. There is considerable demand for India’s space capabilities in Africa, with particular regard to satellite communication, satellite navigation, positioning and timing systems. While ITEC-led capacity building is a good starting point, relying on it solely will prove insufficient. Strengthening India-AU space diplomacy requires deeper institutional linkages that go beyond the current framework of cooperation and serve shared long-term interests.
Chaitanya Giri is a Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology, Observer Research Foundation (ORF).
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Dr. Chaitanya Giri is a Fellow at ORF’s Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology. His work focuses on India’s space ecosystem and its interlinkages with ...
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