The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has the highest particulate pollution (PM2.5) in all of Africa, and the sixth highest in the world. The average resident of the DRC is losing about three years of life expectancy—according to the Air Quality Life Index—because of pollution levels that are nearly seven times higher than the World Health Organization’s guideline. Yet, the people living in the DRC largely don’t know how dangerous the air they breathe is to their health because they don’t have open air quality data. A new initiative is changing that in the country’s capital of Kinshasa.
With support from the EPIC Air Quality Fund, WASARU, a local Congolese organization, has launched Project Kinshasa Air Quality (KINAQ), in collaboration with Dan Westervelt and his group at Columbia University. The project is installing the DRC’s only real-time, open, low-cost PM2.5 monitoring network. It is doing so in the city of Kinshasa—home to more than 17 million people and one of Africa’s largest and fastest-growing urban populations. The open-access network marks a significant milestone, providing citizens, scientists, and policymakers with real-time air quality data. By shedding light on pollution levels across Kinshasa, the project aims to raise public awareness and lead to a public call for targeted efforts to combat air pollution through health and environmental policies.
The policy-focused project, led by WASURU’s founder Paulson KASEREKA ISEVULAMBIRE, builds upon academic research that he and researchers at Columbia University, conducted several years ago.
“We are happy to be paving the path toward cleaner air by making local air quality data open and actionable,” said Paulson KASEREKA ISEVULAMBIRE. “With the EPIC AQ Fund award we will be able to contribute to the knowledge around air quality and public health across the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We have deployed a network of ten air quality monitors across Kinshasa city, initiated discussions with government partners, and began outreach campaigns with school children and the community. We are hoping that this will deepen interest in air quality issues within the greater community and with policy makers.”
Why the DRC, and Why Now?
Air pollution in the DRC is now a bigger threat to life expectancy than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and maternal and child malnutrition. Yet, the country receives just 3.7 million USD a year in international development funding for the issue, according to the State of Global Air Quality Funding 2023 report by the Clean Air Fund. By comparison, the sparsely populated U.S. state of North Dakota recently launched an air quality program with a similar amount of funding. North Dakota has seven times less pollution and 137 times less people than the DRC. With little funding, the DRC has not been able to track pollution. Without data showing how high pollution is and where it is coming from, policymakers cannot set a national air quality standard. Without a standard to aim for, it is difficult to set any other policies.
It is this combination of factors—high pollution, little funding and data, the absence of a national air quality standard, and other metrics—that led EPIC to rank the DRC the country with the highest opportunity to achieve change in a 2023 analysis. The analysis showed that relatively small investments in pollution monitoring and infrastructure could drive substantial, national-level impacts on air pollution in the country.
Sources: Global Burden of Disease, WHO Life Tables. Note: PM2.5 relative to WHO guideline bar displays the reduction in life expectancy relative to the WHO guideline as calculated by AQLI 2023 data.
Source: Air Quality Life Index, 2023. Note: All annual average PM2.5 values (measured in micrograms per cubic meter: µg/m³) are population weighted. To learn more about the methodology used by the AQLI, visit: http://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/about/methodology
“For one of Africa’s largest cities—and the highest air pollution burden of any major African city—to have had no real-time air quality data readily available to the public is staggering. This launch changes that, bringing an essential tool for public health, accountability, and action to Kinshasa and the entire DRC.”
Christa Hasenkopf, Director, EPIC Clean Air Program
Community at the Heart of the Initiative
The Project goes beyond installing pollution monitors. Outreach programs have begun in schools—including Les Bons Petits in Kimwenza, Le Jourdain in UPN, ITP Ngaliema in Ngaliema and Mandrandele in Kingabwa—to teach school leaders and children about the hazards of air pollution. The hope is that by providing information, children and teachers will take steps to protect their health and advocate for cleaner air.
WASARU encourages Master’s students at the Kinshasa School of Public Health of the University of Kinshasa to use the Project’s open data to conduct research on local air pollution. This builds scientific capacity in the region and contributes to national evidence on pollution and its impacts in the country.
At the household level, WASARU leads community conversations to raise public awareness on the dangers of polluted air and practical steps families can take to safeguard their health.
“By embedding education and dialogue at multiple levels—schools, universities and homes— we’re hoping to not only build awareness, but cultivate a culture of collective responsibility.”
Paulson KASEREKA ISEVULAMBIRE, founder of WASURU
Laying the Groundwork for a National Movement
WASARU envisions the Project in Kinshasa as a launchpad, with plans to scale the network across urban and peri-urban areas across the DRC over the next few years. The organization is working closely with key government bodies, including the Ministry of Mines, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Health, the National Action Committee on Water, Hygiene and Sanitation, and the Kinshasa School of Public Health. These partnerships aim to ensure that the data collected is not just monitored, but integrated into national policies.
Olivier Mazianda, a representative for the Directorate of Sanitation and Health (DAS) at the Ministry of Environment said: “To develop air quality standards and strategies, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, through the Directorate of Sanitation and Health (DAS), needs precise data, information, and scientific evidence such as that produced by the Kinshasa Air Quality (KINAQ) project and WASARU ONG. The DAS is currently working on sectoral reform, notably the review of the National Sanitation Policy and the National Sanitation Strategy on the liquid and solid components; however, the contribution of the WASARU ONG project may enable the DAS to integrate the air quality component in these policy documents. That being said, the DAS hopes that the scientific data and information produced by the KINAQ project and its partners will contribute to strengthening the normative, legal and statutory framework on which the DAS is working: National Sanitation Policy and National Sanitation Strategy of the DR Congo.”
Prof Antoinette Tshefu from the Kinshasa School of Public Health and Faculty of Medicine at the University of Kinshasa added: “This project will greatly help policy makers to start somewhere when it comes to monitoring air pollution in the DR Congo.”