MESA program was proposed through the Ouagadougou Declaration signed in September 2010 by the African Union Commission, the ACP Secretariat and the African Regional Economic Communities.

The aim of the program is to ensure continuity of past investments on the use of Earth Observation data in Africa (e.g. PUMA and AMESD) and to provide an initial contribution to the GMES and Africa Initiative, which was called upon through the Maputo Declaration in October 2006 and included in the Joint EU-Africa Strategy as of December 2007.

Beneficiary Countries of MESA program are 48 African countries of five African Regions, namely CEMAC, ECOWAS, IGAD, IOC and SADC. The contracting authority of MESA is the African Union Commission . Funding is obtained from the 10th EDF of the European Union, with a budget of 37 million Euros. Timeframe of implementation is from 2013 to 2017.