Accra gets ‘Breathe Cities’ support to address air pollution 

By Ernest Bako WUBONTO

Breathe Cities, a first-of-its-kind initiative from Clean Air Fund, C40 Cities and Bloomberg Philanthropies, to enhance air quality has enrolled Accra as one of its members, to address air pollution issues in Ghana.

The Breathe Cities initiative, which aims to bring together air quality data, communities and city leaders to reduce air pollution and planet-warming emissions by 30 percent across participating cities by 2030, would team up with the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) under the Greater Accra Region for this exercise.

This partnership would support the city management institutions in building human capacity and community engagement, as well as networking connections to international knowledge sharing to help clean its air.

Accra joins global cities including Brussels, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Milan, Nairobi, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Sofia, Warsaw, and London.

Country Lead, Clean Air Fund, Desmond Appiah, emphasized the transformative power of empowering cities to address air pollution. He highlighted that the project prioritizes community engagement through various initiatives, empowering residents to play a vital role in improving air quality.

“The Breathe Cities initiative will provide Accra with crucial support to strengthen its air quality data collection efforts. This enhanced data will offer a more comprehensive understanding of the city’s air pollution levels, enabling the development of targeted solutions,” he said.

A lack of robust data and public awareness often hinders the ability to carry out the bold policy action needed to address the rising global challenge of air pollution. By fostering collaboration for clean air, Breathe Cities aims to reduce air pollution, slash carbon emissions, and enhance public health.

Dean of Metropolitan/Municipal Chief Executives of Greater Accra Region, George Cyril Bray, highlighted the importance of such a partnership to combat air pollution in the capital city which has been identified as one of the cities with poor air quality in the world.

“This partnership is a key part of our efforts to tackle air pollution in Accra. The technical support, capacity building, community engagement and data provided by the sensors allow us to ensure all our residents breathe cleaner air,” he said.

In 2019, approximately 30,000 premature deaths were attributed to air pollution in Accra. At the country level, air pollution-related deaths annually, stood at 23,792 exceeding those from malaria 21,597, tuberculosis 10,222, and HIV/AIDS 14,620 according to WHO’s report on air pollution in Ghana.

Executive Director of Breathe Cities, Jaime Pumarejo, on his part said: “Research shows that people are increasingly more likely to die from breathing toxic air than from smoking. But by working together to tackle air pollution, we can save lives and address the climate emergency.”

“We are excited to see the Breathe Cities initiative in Accra taking off and to work closely with the city and local communities to ensure cleaner, healthier air for all.”

Leader of the environment programme at Bloomberg Philanthropies, Antha Williams, underscored that cleaner air means better, longer lives for people everywhere.

“Accra is a regional and global leader taking action to reduce air pollution, slash carbon emissions, and enhance public health while also exchanging insights for other cities in Africa and around the world to learn from. Bloomberg Philanthropies is glad to welcome Accra to Breathe Cities to help further their work creating a safer and healthier future for all.”

As a member of the first cohort of Breathe Cities, Accra was carefully selected for its commitment to advancing ambitious policies addressing the dual challenges of air pollution and climate emissions, engaged civil society, strong political interest and leadership, scalability potential, and capacity to implement action plans, among other metrics.

Breathe Accra’s data project, led by Prof. Kofi Amegah, has established a network with 60 low-cost sensors and three TEOM reference monitors to provide real-time air pollution levels to the public for the first time.

Breathe Accra is funding the development of district-level air quality action plans to enable effective implementation of the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Greater Accra Air Quality Management Plan.

Breathe Accra is part of the Zero Waste project which is aimed at reducing waste burning, recycling plastics, metals and promoting community urban garden projects from organic waste composting.

An air pollution awareness and waste-burning prevention campaign will be rolled out shortly and a study on the impact of air pollution on health in the city will be developed as part of Breathe Cities to help the city and its citizens take action.

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