My experience at CAF2025
I had the privilege of attending the Clean Air Forum 2025, held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 15th to 17th July. Previous forums happened in Kampala, Uganda, and Lagos, Nigeria. The meeting brought together a room full of funders, policymakers, researchers, health workers, media representatives, government officials, and tech experts who are shaping how Africa thinks and acts about air quality and health. Some of my main takeaways from the event include the following. The Global South is keeping up or attempting to catch up in the hardware game, in efforts to carry out better air quality monitoring and have data. Companies in East and West Africa in partnership with funders in the Global North disseminate a significant number of low-cost sensors that measure PM2.5. These instruments, however, are limited to measuring only PM2.5. It is important that instrumentation used in the Global South be suitable for the region to produce accurate results. We therefore have initiatives like air qua...