South Africa, Forerunner of African Technological Development

Africa, the world’s second largest and second most populous continent, has their economic growth rate at about 5.0% for 2010 and 5.5% in 2011. And with this, there is an expectation of a more efficient communication which can only be brought by the satellites. On its forefront is South Africa, a place of multi-ethnicity and -diversity, and ranked as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank, and the largest economy in the continent–the 28th-largest in the world.

From a copy of the speech of the Minister of Science and Technology of South Africa, Naledi Pandor MP, at the opening of the International Astronautical Congress (IAC), IICC, on Cape Tow, October 3, 2011, Parliamentary Question: DST: International Astronautical Congress,  said that their country has “much to offer the world in space science and technology,” although it was only last year that their government finally placed all the necessary institutes, strategies and policies together.

Pandor said that they have a space programme which is not only about the pursuit of frontier research and knowledge as a goal in itself, but is also about developing all aspects of the space industry at the tip of Africa for the benefit of the whole of Africa which was shaped by their National Space Strategy.

It set South Africa three core objectives: to capture a South African share of the global market for small to medium-sized space systems; to improve decision making through the integration of space-based systems with ground-based systems for providing data; and, to develop applications for the provision of geospatial, telecommunications, timing and positioning products and services.