AirQo Low-Cost Air Quality Sensor Network

AirQo, founded at Makerere University in 2015, designs and builds its own low-cost air-quality monitors in Kampala and runs them across the city — roughly 100 monitors by 2022, one of the densest city networks in Africa — publishing real-time PM2.5 readings through an open platform and app, in a monitoring collaboration with KCCA and national regulator NEMA. A peer-reviewed characterisation in Environmental Science & Technology (2022, AirQo with the World Bank) measured average PM2.5 in Kampala of 41.1 µg/m³ over its study period, with exceedances of health guidelines by about 4–6 times across most study locations. The honest limit: no Kampala reading triggers anything — the data's policy vehicle is a KCCA Clean Air Action Plan targeting a 50% cut in pollutants by 2030, still being finalised in 2026.