Municipal Assemblies in Accra empowered and ready to fight air pollution after bootcamp
Air pollution is hard to fight, partly because most people cannot see it. The smoke from a burning refuse heap drifts away. The fumes from an old trotro fade into the traffic. But the fine particles they leave behind stay in the air, and in the lungs of the people who breathe them. That makes it a silent killer. A UNDP investment case presented by Belynda Amankwa, Programme Specialist for Health, found that outdoor air pollution contributed to more than 12,000 deaths in Ghana in 2024, about 64 percent of them before the age of 70. It cost the economy about US$2 billion, equivalent to 2.3 percent of GDP. Stroke, lower respiratory infections and heart disease were among the leading causes.