The African Centre for the Study of the United States, University of Pretoria (ACSUS-UP) invites you to a public lecture titled US-Africa Space Cooperation: Science Diplomacy and the Geopolitics of Technologies by Dr Samuel Oyewole, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, African Centre for the Study of the United States, University of Pretoria (ACSUS-UP) and Ocean Regions Programme of the Department of Political Sciences.
 

Cooperation between the United States and Africa has evolved over the last century. As the world’s leading space power, the United States has supported relevant research and development of space science and technologies and associated policy and strategies in Africa through grant, aid, investment, services, technology transfer, popularization, capacity building, diplomacy, and partnership. Although Africa is made up of emerging and aspiring space nations, many of them have supported the US-led “rule based” international order in space, hosted tracking stations that are relevant to the US network of ground infrastructures for space communications, developed partnership in mutually benefiting areas, and consume space-related technologies that contribute to the US global market shares and influence. These are relevant indicators of US-Africa space cooperation and subject of interest in science diplomacy and the geopolitics of technologies. Despite commitment to diplomacy, geopolitics indicates an admixture of restriction, flexibility, and openness on the United States and African states, as outer space is also a theatre of cooperation, competition, and conflict. Accordingly, this lecture promises to examine dimensions of US-Africa space cooperation, their rationales, trajectories, challenges, and possible ways forward in the framework of their relevance to science diplomacy and geopolitical implications of technologies.

Date: Thursday, 22 August 2024
Time: 15:00
Venue: Merensky Library Auditorium
To register: click here
Enquiries: Ms Lerato Dube: Administrator, ACSUS-UP, +27 12 420 2034, Email: [email protected]