Democratizing Air Quality Information and Advocacy in Uganda

With an annual mean concentration of Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5) that is ten times greater than the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended limit, Uganda is home to one of Africa's most polluted cities. Kampala's annual mean concentration of PM2.5 stands at 50 15µg/m3, which is ten times higher than the WHO recommendation of 5µg/m3.

Pollution does more than just linger in the air. It drives infant mortality, triggers asthma, compromises lungs for children and the elderly, and has been linked to cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and dementia. For children who survive infant mortality, early exposure can mean a lifetime of compromised health.

Yet, just like in many other low-resource, but rapidly urbanizing countries, it is difficult for policymakers and a population dealing with numerous daily challenges to prioritize the quality of the air they breathe.

Effects of poor air quality, many of them long-term or obscure and often attributable to other causes, hardly register when dealing with visceral crises such as flooding, waste collection troubles, food shortages for sections of the population, and traffic jams. There is also a communication gap caused by the technical language and measurements of atmospheric science, which are slightly cumbersome.

In many places, pollution tracking is confined to ivory towers at universities and occasionally at government bureaus, leaving the data inaccessible and the consequences invisible. Unsurprisingly, this leaves a profound lack of engagement with the very air that defines people's health.

That's why Public Square has spent close to a year contributing its own resources to the mainstreaming of air quality discourse. As an organisation, Public Square prides itself in holistically analyzing challenges that face East Africans and addressing toxic air that impairs children's respiratory systems and undermines their future quality of life, which is precisely the kind of challenge that drives the team.

Through our partnerships and work, people are finding the language they need to talk about air pollution and its effect on the quality of life in our cities; the media is crafting stories about air quality and participants in our citizen science projects are finding the initiative to plant trees and reduce the contamination of their children's lungs and brains.

Through projects like Empeewo bwe Bulamu (which roughly translates to "you cannot have life without breathing"), Public Square is setting up the foundation for different stakeholders to invest in improving air quality across all of Uganda's cities.

Initiatives by Public Square in the air quality space include:

#KampalaBreathes

With the #KampalaBreathes campaign, Public Square set out to break down the barriers to air pollution information. The #KampalaBreathes and #CitizenScienceUG hashtags amplified conversations previously had behind closed doors by policy makers such as the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA). There was definitely an uptick in the public's inclination to talk about air quality and air pollution in Kampala.

We did not just generate and publish information; we got the public to reimagine their quality of life and health in a poor air quality environment, and anyone tracking media conversations would have been able to sense the increased concern.

Shortly before the launch of #KampalaBreathes one senior editor and popular columnist was ridiculed for attempting to introduce rich people problems. This opinion leader had shared concerns on air quality after sharing a picture of the clog in his air purifier, but the internet simply laughed at what was described as rich problems.

Through its innovative approaches, however, Public Square has been able to turn the air quality discourse that was initially dismissive. The track record of using social media to turn passive scrolling into active engagement came to bear, as a movement was built by collaborating with runners, opinion leaders and road safety advocates to make the invisible visible and for people to appreciate how detrimental air pollution can be.

As part of #KampalaBreathes, opinion leaders carried portable air quality sensors on their runs or walks through different parts of Kampala and its surrounding districts. The air quality readings would then be mapped and shared on social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), provoking conversations on health implications.

The Portable Monitor Borrowing Programme

In this ongoing initiative, interested individuals go through a simple procedure to borrow monitors that can be carried along on commutes from home to work and vice versa. Parents walking their children to school, individuals in markets and those interested in the quality of air in their neighbourhoods can all borrow the portable monitors to take the readings.

The data collected during the walks will be enlightening for the individual who borrowed the air quality monitor, as the Public Square takes time to teach about readings. Besides the portable monitor, readings are providing the data for Public Square to map a mobility air quality dashboard and fill an existing gap. In Kampala, the number of static air quality monitors are increasing, but even in well-serviced areas, research exists to show that mobility data fills an existing gap.

Empewo Bwe Bulamu Project (roughly translates to you cannot have life without breathing)

As its non-English name suggests, this 2025 project's uniqueness is in its ambition to localize, and create a future where an expanded availability of air quality sensors would build a foundation for interventions that reach a diverse group of people.

An important partner in this project is the biggest and oldest cultural institution in Uganda--the Kingdom of Buganda.

The importance of onboarding cultural institutions and particularly Buganda, which enjoys a lot of goodwill from the public and is a major landholder in its jurisdiction, motivated the naming of the project in Luganda.

Under the Empewo Bwe Bulamu Project, Public Square, with support from the Epic Air Quality Fund, identified 15 strategic locations for static air quality monitors. Location identification was based on pollution exposure, urban activity and the main goal of democratizing access to air quality data.

One of the most strategic locations is the seat of the Buganda kingdom. In addition to a static air quality monitor, this location now has a screen that provides air quality data readings daily. With consistent access to air quality data for leaders of a Kingdom, whose governance legacy spans over 750 years, Public Square is setting up a foundation for interventions that can include convincing and working with communities to move away from cooking with wood fuel.

As the single biggest landholder in one of Uganda's most densely populated regions, Buganda can support efforts to plant trees and preserve existing forests, while also protecting existing swamps and vegetation surrounding water bodies.