The pact, signed during last week's Paris Air Show, will provide for the use of ESA satellites to improve air traffic navigation safety over Africa.

The framework agreement focuses on the next phase of the ESA's Global Navigation Satellite Systems deployment, which includes the extension and use of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service as an operational service in Africa.

The ESA said it and the African agency have worked together since 2003, organizing several projects which demonstrated the benefits of EGNOS in Africa, where very few airports are equipped with conventional landing guidance systems.

Currently in preoperational service over Europe, EGNOS is designed to record, correct and improve data from the U.S. Global Positioning Service. The ESA said its EGNOS system offers an accuracy of better than 6.5 feet, compared with the 49-to-65-foot accuracy provided by GPS signals, with an added guarantee of the quality of the signals.