Africa’s space economy has already surpassed $24.95 billion, and Italy’s week-long Italy-Africa Business Week, which concluded in Rome on 6 March 2026, made the sector a centrepiece of its diplomatic and commercial agenda as Italy prepares to assume the presidency of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space for 2026 to 2027. The convergence of European funding access, Italian space infrastructure in Africa, and a continent-wide legal and regulatory push is reshaping how African governments and investors are treating space as an economic asset rather than a prestige project.
- The 9th edition of the Italy-Africa Business Week, held at the Farnesina in Rome with Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, drew delegations from Nigeria, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Egypt, Tunisia, Benin, Cameroon and others. Discussions on space featured in a dedicated panel on new development paths in African markets, alongside energy, agri-food, health, and infrastructure.
- Italy-Africa trade reached EUR 54.6 billion in 2025, EUR 20.2 billion in Italian exports and EUR 34.3 billion in imports, according to Italian foreign ministry data released at the event. The Italian government has EUR 200 million reserved under the SIMEST Africa Measure to support Italian firms investing on the continent.
- Africa’s space economy was originally projected to reach $22.64 billion by 2026. It arrived two years early and has already exceeded that figure by more than $2 billion, growing at a compound annual rate of nearly 8%. The sector is on track to reach $39.52 billion by 2030.
- Italy’s key Africa space asset is the Luigi Broglio Space Centre near Malindi, Kenya, a launch facility used for Italian, US, and British satellites during the Cold War but dormant since 1988. Italy’s Business Minister Adolfo Urso has stated that relaunching the centre for Earth observation satellites is a priority objective under the Mattei Plan, Italy’s strategic engagement framework for Africa.
- A third Italy-Africa Space Leaders Meeting held in February 2026 brought together more than 30 senior space leaders from 17 African countries including Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe. Central themes were legal framework development, regulatory coordination, and positioning African states in global space governance ahead of Italy’s COPUOS term.
Africa’s space economy has already blown past its 2026 projections, with downstream applications in agriculture, disaster risk management, financial inclusion, and remote education increasingly embedded in national development strategies. Italy’s Mattei Plan frames space not as a bilateral favour but as a platform for institutional partnership, with legal harmonisation and information-sharing agreements as the prerequisites for deeper technical cooperation. For African executives, the more immediate opportunity is the European funding pipeline: Italian export credit instruments, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti’s Africa ceiling, and SACE’s Africa Champion Programme all provide access to Italian capital for joint ventures in space-adjacent sectors. Nigeria’s own space push, which includes a new domestic launch centre and a revised 25-year National Space Roadmap, is the clearest example of how African governments are simultaneously pursuing domestic capability while engaging European partners.
The Bigger Picture: Italy’s dual position as Africa’s space partner of choice and incoming COPUOS president gives it unusual leverage to shape the regulatory environment in which African satellite operators, Earth observation firms, and downstream data companies will operate for the next decade. For African governments, that is both an opportunity and a negotiating moment. The countries that move fastest to establish space law frameworks, sign bilateral information-sharing agreements, and anchor Italian technical cooperation to domestic industrial policy will be best positioned to capture the commercial benefits of a sector on course to nearly double in size by 2030. The Broglio Centre question remains unresolved: Kenya’s parliament has noted the 2020 training agreement produced limited results, and any reactivation will require a more commercially specific deal than what has existed to date.
Source: TechReview Africa / Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Space in Africa
