Africa Clean Air Forum eyes continental pollution shift

The Africa Clean Air Forum 2026 opened this week in Pretoria, drawing participants from 47 African nations for a continental push against air pollution. The forum, organized by the Africa Clean Air Network (AfriCAN), is in its fourth year and marks the first time it’s being held in southern Africa.

The four-day forum is focused on the investment case for clean air and healthy cities. Participants have been sharing evidence-driven clean air actions and discussing sustainable funding, with attention to cross-border knowledge sharing. The forum follows the first G20 resolution on clean air, which was proposed by South Africa last year.

A G20 resolution on clean air, then a reality check

Opening the conference, Bernice Swarts, South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, said her country’s G20 presidency last year created an opportunity to make air quality a strategic development priority. The resulting G20 resolution recognized that poor air quality is a cause of premature mortality and stressed the importance of open and reliable air quality data. It also commits G20 countries to supporting international collaboration to combat transboundary air pollution.

Swarts struck a cautious note. “What are we talking about when we say we are going to work together? It must not just be broad and blank. It must be specific so that it talks to outcomes that we want to achieve and will add value to the air quality that we are going to have,” she said in an interview.

Apart from Swarts, the forum was not attended by any Cabinet Ministers or senior politicians. The focus instead was on the work of scientists, city officials, provincial administrators and policy experts.

For communities across Africa, the shift toward cleaner air means confronting everyday habits that have gone unchallenged for generations. The conference’s emphasis on local innovation and monitoring suggests that lasting change will depend less on international pledges and more on how cities adapt their own approaches to air quality. That’s a harder kind of work, and it doesn’t come with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Indoor smoke and the question of normal

Africa’s population is projected to grow from about 1.5 billion now to about 2.5 billion by 2050. The median age is 19 today, but by 2073, the number of young Africans under 25 is likely to surpass Asia. Development will have to pick up pace to meet the needs of the population, but the challenge is to do that without the air pollution that has typically accompanied rapid development.

That challenge is most noticeable at the grassroots level. Xoli Fuyani from Black Girls Rising, a South African non-profit, described how she couldn’t breathe in a traditional mud hut when a fire was lit for tea. Her hosts seemed unconcerned, saying that is how their grandmothers cooked. “How long can we accept this as normal?” Fuyani says. “Any transformation begins when communities see themselves as innovators and not just beneficiaries,” she added, calling for local communities to be made partners in air quality management.

Indoor air pollution from biomass cooking fuels remains one of sub-Saharan Africa’s most persistent yet under-prioritized public health emergencies.

What Kampala and Nairobi are doing differently

Although the focus is on Africa, South-South cooperation between all developing countries is a core theme. Rebecca Garland from the University of Pretoria cautioned against relying on the Global North’s support, including for funding, as the North often had a different agenda.

Sharifah Buzeki, executive director of the Kampala Capital City Authority in Uganda, provided a direct example of South-South collaboration. Officials from Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital and one of the world’s most polluted cities, visited to see Kampala’s progress in air quality management. Kampala’s response rests on hyperlocal monitoring and live public data access via a mobile app and website, paired with an awareness campaign on digital screens in the city.

A research team from Nairobi explained how the city went from just two low-cost air pollution monitors to about 130 in four years. “Analysts have been able to map out trends in pollution. For example, it peaks between six and nine in the morning and evening, probably because of traffic and household habits. But the extensive data across Nairobi has meant enforcement can be tracked,” one of the researchers explained. “We can now translate this into action on the ground. We are able to inspect. We are able to carry out our compliance and enforcement in various sectors within the city.”

The team showed data from low-cost sensors at about 40 schools from January to May, all of them were above the WHO’s safe guideline of 5 micrograms per cubic meter of PM2.5, the fine particulate pollutant.

This is the forum’s fourth edition, and the largest with over 530 participants. The large number of participants this year demonstrates “a great continental movement,” said Tunde Ajayi of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency and Africa Clean Air Network. “Clean air is not a luxury. It is a prerequisite for healthy people, for thriving economies and sustainable development. The investments we make today will determine the quality of life of generations to come.”