Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has renewed its campaign to improve urban air quality, urging residents to become active custodians of the environment as pollution levels continue to threaten public health. The call was made as the authority hosted a visiting delegation from Dhaka City, Bangladesh, reinforcing international cooperation in addressing shared urban health challenges.Addressing the media at the Lord Mayor’s Parlor, KCCA Executive Director Hajjat Sharifah Buzeki warned that everyday practices such as burning garbage, driving poorly maintained vehicles, and generating dust from unpaved roads are silently damaging the city’s air. She emphasized that protecting public health requires both institutional action and individual responsibility from residents.Buzeki noted that Kampala’s air quality frequently falls within the poor to unhealthy range, with fine particulate matter levels regularly exceeding World Health Organization safety guidelines. She said these conditions pose serious long-term risks to residents, making air pollution a critical urban governance issue that demands urgent and sustained intervention.She outlined a range of measures KCCA is implementing to curb emissions, including expanding a network of more than 100 air quality monitoring stations, enforcing vehicle inspections, digitising traffic management systems, and limiting approvals for highly polluting activities. The authority is also investing in non-motorised transport and accelerating road paving, noting that only 740 kilometres of Kampala’s 2,104-kilometre road network are currently paved.The briefing coincided with a four-day benchmarking visit by a Dhaka City delegation under the Partnership for Healthy Cities, led by Joseph Ngamije, the Africa Deputy Director of the initiative. Buzeki said the partnership enables cities to learn from one another, guided by data and evidence, while strengthening collective action against non-communicable diseases linked to pollution.Representing the Lord Mayor, Deputy Lord Mayor Olive Namazzi called for air quality management to be fully institutionalised within KCCA. She advocated for the creation of a dedicated air quality unit with its own budget and pushed for the fast-tracking of the Air Quality Ordinance, stressing that stronger enforcement and community awareness are essential for lasting impact.Ngamije praised Kampala for its data-driven approach to urban health, describing the city as a regional leader in air quality management. Dhaka City representative Hassan Abdul echoed the sentiment, saying the collaboration reflects a shared commitment to protecting citizens’ health through innovation and cross-city learning.AirQo’s Prof. Engineer Bainemugisha highlighted that Kampala now boasts one of the most extensive air quality monitoring networks in Africa, made possible through sustained partnerships. He noted that air pollution is the world’s second leading risk factor for death, causing millions of fatalities annually, and stressed that collaboration among cities remains key as the Dhaka delegation concluded its engagements in Kampala.
