Building Air Quality Management Capacities Worldwide

Air quality is a global and ubiquitous challenge facing human health. Historically densely populated areas in central and southern Asia have long struggled in an uphill battle to restrain air pollutants while areas across Africa entering into a population boom are beginning to face many of the same challenges.

Despite the widely known negative impacts on human health, only 30 percent of countries across the world have any sort of air quality regulations in effect. Given that air quality is the second-leading cause of premature death worldwide, one would think the topic would be top-of-mind across citizens and politicians alike.

“But nobody knows about it. It’s insane,” said Catherine “Cat” Fox, an air quality program analyst in the United States Department of State’s Office of Environmental Quality. “That’s why we’re here. We want to increase the cross-communications of people fighting this problem worldwide and help each other rather than trying to work on our own.”

The “here” that Fox is referring to is the J.B. Duke Hotel, located on the campus of Duke University. Over the course of three days in the first week of November, air quality activists and experts gathered together to discuss their individual projects with the aim of discovering synergies and approaches that could help them achieve their goals together.

The common thread connecting each is that they all work on a project funded by Fox’s office at the Department of State. Representing 10 efforts deployed across every continent except Antarctica, the group is funded by about one million dollars annually. If that seems like a small amount to fight global air pollution, it is, which is why much of their work focuses on deploying low-cost air quality sensors throughout areas that currently do not have any data on the subject.

Such sensors are a specialty of Mike Bergin, the Sternberg Family Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Duke. As the leader of the group’s largest project, which is focused on countries in central and southern Asia, Bergin is the one responsible for bringing everyone to Duke’s campus.

“Mike is a very special implementer. I’ve never met anyone able to bring together a team better than he can,” Fox said. “The way that he structures events and conversations leaves people feeling motivated when they leave rather than feeling drained from having a ton of information shoved at them.”

Last year was the first time this group gathered together, and everyone enjoyed their time at Duke so much that they decided to keep their second event in the same location.

“This year, we’ve also brought in experts from other state departments, environmental groups and funding agencies, too,” added Fox. “We want to bring more people and more awareness about this topic together.”

One such traveler was Rose Alani, who leads an air quality and research group out of the University of Lagos in Nigeria. She is part of a larger consortium of researchers from five countries led by Makerere University, AirQo in Uganda.

Up until a few years ago, Alani explained, the entire country of Nigeria only had two air quality sensors; one at the U.S. Embassy and another at the U.S. Consulate in Lagos. Through their project funded by the U.S. Department of State, they have secured a third reference monitor housed at the University of Lagos that serves as a calibration and validation station for the low-cost sensors being deployed throughout the region.

Working with local governments and funding agencies, the Makerere-led consortium has so far acquired and set up over 80 of these low-cost sensors and deployed them across Uganda, Burundi, Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon. The ongoing project builds on work and existing partnerships to strengthen cross-regional collaborations to improve capacity in air quality management.

“There has long been a scarcity of data about air quality in these countries, but we’re creating a lot of awareness about the issue in our communities now,” Alani said. “People are embracing it and are eager to know more about what they can do to be part of the solution.”

Deo Okure, another attendee who is part of AirQo, Makerere University team, talked about the project’s work to enhance capacity for data access, evidence-driven awareness and advocacy, and policy development. Working with various funding and technology partners including Google.org, the group is working to build capacity centered around Africa-centric technology solutions for air quality, and has deployed over 260 low-cost sensors across 15 cities in Africa, enabling open access to data on air pollution affecting over 60 million people.

“This is a great opportunity to connect with different people around the world doing similar things to share knowledge and experiences,” said Okure. “The broad reflection will help us refine and move the conversations forward about how to apply some of these insights on the African continent.”

The sentiments from both Alani and Okure are a hallmark of the overarching goals of all the projects. While air quality is a global problem and one that must be faced collaboratively, the communities affected by their specific circumstances and who will ultimately enact their own specific solutions must be part of the discussions from the beginning. “This isn’t just the United States coming in and telling people what to do,” emphasized Fox. “We want to give them the tools and data they need to make decisions for themselves.”