With two million people globally dying prematurely as a result of fossil fuels every year, the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) will inaugurate Africa’s clean energy initiative that seeks to reduce household air pollution responsible for the burden of disease in sub-Sahara Africa.
The Clean-Air (Africa) initiative funded at £7 million (approx. Ksh. 1 billion) is a new international collaboration on clean energy, air pollution and health research and champions clean cooking for health, gender equality, environment, and climate in sub-Saharan Africa.
The launch which will take place in Nairobi will be graced by representatives from Kenya and other partners including Cameroon, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda.
The NIHR Global Health Research Unit on CLEAN-Air (Africa) brings together experts from the University of Liverpool (UK), KEMRI in Kenya and the other four African Countries.
It is a five-year programme of policy-oriented research and health systems strengthening focused on informing national strategies to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of ‘Universal access to affordable and clean energy’ (SDG7) that will improve health (SDG3), gender equality (SDG5), economic growth (SDG8) and climate (SDG13) by 2030.
The Clean-Air (Africa) initiative will see the establishment of an Air Pollution Centre of Excellence at KEMRI that will house state-of-the-art air monitoring equipment and training facilities for academics, public and private sector organizations from Kenya and across Africa to conduct their own air quality monitoring and research.
The NIHR Global Health Research Unit on CLEAN-Air (Africa) involves research partners from the University of Liverpool, KEMRI, Moi University, University of Dar es Salaam, Makerere University Lung Institute, Rwanda Biomedical Center and Eagle Research Center and Douala General Hospital.
