With the participation of eight African countries, the Egyptian Space Agency is set to announce an initiative to build the African Development Satellite during the initiative's first coordination meeting on Wednesday in Cairo.

The first coordination meeting for the Egyptian Initiative for the African Development Satellite Project, organised by the Egyptian Space Agency, will be held for two days starting Tuesday, with the participation of Sudan, Morocco, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya.

According to the Egyptian Space Agency, the participation of the eight countries in the meeting comes in light of the integration of African countries in the field of space, and the political weight that Egypt represents in this field, especially after Egypt hosted the headquarters of the African Space Agency in 2019.

The agency said that the project aims to develop a space system able to monitor the emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming and their impact on the African continent, depending on the capabilities of each participant country.

The project comes in coordination with the Egyptian Ministry of Environment to benefit from its technical expertise in this field.

Established in 2016 by the African Union, the African Space Agency is an African initiative dedicated to promoting, advising and coordinating the development and utilisation of space science and technology in Africa and associated regulations for the benefit of the continent and the world, as well as the forging of intra-African and international cooperation.

Egypt won a bid to host the African Space Agency in February.

The Egyptian Space Agency was established in 2018 to put in place the necessary infrastructure to establish a satellite industry for remote sensing and communications.