African Synchrotron is an inter-regional/inter-gov project. It is an accelerator that generates X-rays for research, with several applications in different disciplines and for many private companies: medicine, biophysics, drugs, material for industry, genomic, cristallography, art, cosmetics etc. Africa is the only continent without any synchrotron light source facility. At its 32nd ordinary session, 23–24 January 2018 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the African Union Executive Council calls upon member states to support a Pan-African Synchrotron Initiative. Therefore, the realization of a large facility or several middle size ones in Africa , is a priority.
In 2019, the African Academy of Science (AAS) formed a committee for African Synchrotron Initiative (ASI) and has recently launched the project and constituted an executive committee chaired by Prof. Shaaban Khalil from Egypt. This project is of the order of one billion dollar for an inter-regional large facility. This can be afforded as contributions from African countries and international partners, scientific and economic organizations and foundations.
The challenge for ASI is to prepare the ground for the prospects, the scientific goals and the technical design and discuss with African nations and governments, the importance of the facility (locally and regionnaly) and its impact on society: science, technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, industry, employment and growth.