On Monday, 13th May 2024, the Kenya Space Agency board and management launched the KSA Strategic Plan 2023-2027.
The CS Defence, H.E. Hon. Aden Duale, accompanied by the CDR General Charles Kahariri and senior officers in the Ministry of Defence and Kenya Defence Forces, convened the launch event. Various stakeholders from the public and private sector were present as well.
The strategic plan highlights the course in which the Kenya Space Agency’s (KSA) aspires to grow the nation’s rising space economy, aiming to invest majorly in the national socio-economic development in the course of the next five years. The plan targets six major areas for the implementation of the Kenyan space programme, in alignment with the KSA’s objective of the “effective utilization of space capabilities for national development,” during this period.
The six major areas include: coordination and regulation of space activities, national space capability development, utilization of space services and technologies, space research, innovation and development, resource mobilization, and strengthening institutional capacity.
H.E. Hon. Aden Duale, in his speech, stated that the strategic plan was in alignment with the national development agenda and priorities discussed in Kenya’s Vision 2030, Medium-Term IV, and solicited for the idealization of the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda, while also discussing other global and regional goals specified under the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and African Union Agenda 2030.
Furthermore, he stressed the essence of the strategic alliances, particularly the Kenya-Italy bilateral agreement on space and other space-related collaboration. This, he claimed, were necessary partnerships for the mobilization of resources, capacity development enhancement, and new markets and technologies access for the Kenya Space Agency.
General Kahariri, the Chief of Defence, in his remarks, underscored the essential role of space in assisting the national security bodies in areas which include but not limited to disaster management, climate change detection and mitigation, and environmental supervision.
