Cityzens for Clean Air
Photo from our partner, UrbanBetter
Youth-led campaign for clean air & climate-resilient public spaces in African cities
Project:
Cityzens for Clean Air
Location:
South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana
Partners:
Urban Better, London School for Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Treeshake
Category:
Climate Resilience
Challenge
Tackling the impact of climate change on health will require a focus on cities, where over 50% of greenhouse gas emissions arise, particularly in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Nowhere is this more important than in Africa, the fastest urbanizing region globally. The urbanization process in African cities is characterized by the proliferation of informal settlements and multi-dimensional, climate-sensitive precarities, such as haphazard land-use mix, which poses health threats through inequitable access to safe public space, clean air, healthy foods, and walkable built environments.
Globally, nine out of 10 people in the world breathe air with pollution levels that exceed the World Health Organization’s guideline limits. The impact of air pollution is even more severe in African cities, where unclean air kills more people than unsafe drinking water or malnutrition on an annual basis. According to a World Bank study in 2018, ambient air pollution led to about 11,200 premature deaths in Lagos, a city with an estimated population of 24 million. Children under five were the most affected, accounting for 60% of total deaths, while adults suffered from heart disease, lung cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Despite these concerning statistics, action on air pollution remains slow and piecemeal across cities.
Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest cohort of young people in history with 60% of the population under the age of 25. An increasing proportion of city residents are young people; The median age of the mega-city of Lagos, for example, is 19. Unleashing the transformative potential of young people to drive development requires a healthy population. However, the increasing exposure of young people to these unhealthy cities is threatening this potential with a rise in NCDs at increasingly earlier ages. Similarly, achieving healthy cities requires young people to be engaged on this topic to drive innovation for healthy urbanization; The perspectives of this young population are critical for effective and relevant policy solutions.
Innovation
In collaboration with UrbanBetter, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and Treeshake, YLabs is a partner on the Cityzens for Clean Air project. We are supporting participatory open-source data collection on air pollution and co-designing a youth-led advocacy campaign for clean air and health public spaces that support physical activity.. The project aims to support evidence-informed advocacy for healthy climate-resilient public space in Cape Town, Lagos and Accra leading up to the 2022 COP27 forum in Egypt.
Cityzens for Clean Air will work with 10 Run Leaders (students, activists, scientists, and athletes under the age of 35) in each city through a series of workshops to train them on the impacts of air pollution and climate change on health, co-design running routes to capture diverse data on air quality and public space from their city, and develop advocacy tools and tactics to obtain public commitments to sustainable, health-oriented urban development policies from their city governments. Ultimately, the Run Leaders and YLabs will also co-design an open-source digital platform that can capture and visualize air pollution and other current health risks in public spaces.
The data platform and evidence-based advocacy campaign will culminate at COP27 in Egypt, where the Cityzens for Clean Air project partners and youth leaders will share citizen scientist findings, call for public commitments on air pollution by city and national policy makers, and provide a tangible example of how to mainstream young people’s leadership and lived experience in urban planning and policies of the cities they call home.
Next Steps
YLabs is in the Design Research phase, in which our team is partnering with the youth Run Leaders in Accra, Cape Town, and Lagos to capture information about the air quality and features of different city neighborhoods. In the next phase, we will co-design advocacy tools and tactics for each city at a local level, based on the citizen science data collected, as well as a cross-city campaign for COP27 If you are interested in learning more about the Cityzens for Clean Air initiative, please reach out to contact@ylabsglobal.org.
