4.2.3 Regional Remote Sensing Centre, Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) 
It was initially a national centre but was regionalized in October 1979. 
Like the Nairobi Centre, it has organized several training courses of three-month duration 
both in English and in French for nationals of countries involved in the activities of the Centre. 
With modest support from some donor countries, it is able to embark upon project execution 
in the fields of desertification control, agronomy and water resources development etc. With a 
well equipped photolaboratory and a rich collection of satellite imageries, it is well disposed to 
supply basic in-house needs of some of its clients. 
4.24 Remote Sensing Centre, Cario (Egypt) 
Remote Sensing Centre, Kinshasa (Zaire) 
These two centres which are among the package in the African Remote Sensing Programme 
are still operating as national centres. The Cairo Centre which is located within the Academy of 
Sciences enjoys tremendous support from its major donor; it is well staffed, superby equipped 
with modern remote sensing equipment and, above all, is actively engaged in project execution in 
many fields of resource development — land use mapping, agricultural applications, water rescur- 
ces, geological mapping and mineral exploitations etc, The Kinshasa Centre provides remote sen- 
sing services to the Republic of Zaire, and has intensified its sensitization campaign for member- 
ship drive to achive true regionalization. 
Whether at national or subregional level, the Remote Sensing Centres, within the resources 
available to them, have been able to demonstrate the potential uses of remote sensing technology. 
The low impact which the applications have made is probably due to the low level of technologi- 
cal development in most of the African countries, The resources are simply not available to 
support such a regional venture as other national priorities take precedence over it. 
The phase 11 of the development of some of the Remote Sensing Centres which concerns the 
construction of ground receiving and processing stations at Ouagadougou and Nairobi has lagged 
behind because of the inability to meet the African counterpart contributions to the cost of the 
project. In either case, the feasibility study had been concluded and negotiation for funds throu- 
gh technical co-operation continues. 
4.3 Remote Sensing activities at national level 
Prior to the launching of ERTS in 1972, the remote sensing method most widely used by 
African States was aerial photography. The use of aerial photographs (black and white, infrared) 
was, and still is, wide-spread in photo-interpretation relating -to geology, mining, agriculture, 
pedology and topographical mapping. Aerial photography missions were then generally conduc- 
ted by foreign firms or companies to meet their specific needs; as such, one will find, up till 
today in some African countries, aerial photographic coverage is discontinuous (sporadic). 
With the establishment of the African Remote Sensing Programme in 1975, African member 
States were introduced to the potentials of remote sensing as a value-added powerful tool for 
natural resources planning and development for the benefit of their people. Even though some of 
the countries lack the resources, human and material, to utilize the technology fully, the aware- 
ness is already created and efforts are being made to establish national focus in many countries 
for the purpose of coordinating the remote sensing activities of their concerned departments 
and institutions, 
  
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