WHO Announces Air Pollution Summit in Accra to Tackle ‘Public Health Emergency’

07/09/2023 Stefan Anderson

The World Health Organization (WHO) will host a summit on air pollution in Accra, Ghana in 2024, the organization announced on Thursday. The summit will be the second ever to address air pollution, which is responsible for millions of premature deaths each year, and the first to be held in Africa. The announcement was made […] Continue reading ->

South-East Asia, Africa and Middle East are World’s Air Pollution Hot Spots in WHO’s Largest-Ever Data Release

04/04/2022 Elaine Ruth Fletcher

In its largest release of data on air quality ever, WHO has found that most of the world’s population are breathing unsafe levels of air pollutant – particularly fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) – which cause excess illness and premature death from respiratory disease, as well as from cardiovascular disease and cancers. […] Continue reading ->

Cities on the Forefront of COVID-19 Response – Experiences From Athens, Bogota and Kampala

31/10/2020 Madeleine Hoecklin

Third in a series – Cities are major drivers of public health and the COVID-19 pandemic has brought increasing and urgent necessity for effective, innovative leadership and collaboration within and between cities. “The COVID-19 pandemic has upended lives around the globe and nowhere has the impact of this virus been more evident than in urban areas, […] Continue reading ->

Clean Air And Sustainable Urban Planning As ‘Spatial Vaccines’ Against COVID-19

30/10/2020 Madeleine Hoecklin

Second in a series– Cities that clean up their air quality, and promote other urban sustainability measures can help reduce residents’ risks during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as going forward, say a growing number of urban air quality and sustainability experts. That message was highlighted in two events last week and today, which were […] Continue reading ->

World Cities Day – Global Cooperation Amidst Pandemic Promotes Sustainable, Resilient Health

29/10/2020 Raisa Santos

First in a Series: While COVID continues to cast a long shadow over our everyday lives, from Baku, Azerbaijan to Bogota, Columbia, there are also countless examples of how cities and communities have mobilized to respond to the social and economic fallout from the pandemic – building new forms of cooperation that also promote a […] Continue reading ->