Visits & Lectures

Kampala’s car-free day and implications for air quality and urban health 

On March 26, Uganda held its first Car-Free Day in Kampala themed ‘road safety and air quality’, with a major objective to create awareness about safe streets for Kampala City and suburb dwellers.

A car-free day has strong benefits for urban air quality, particularly by raising awareness of green and sustainable mobility alternatives such as mass transport, and non-motorized means. 

Snapshot of the presentation (Credit: AirQo)

The air quality partners in Uganda (KCCA, U.S Embassy and AirQo) convened a public discourse through a public webinar held on Friday, March 24, to discuss the implications of car-free days. My contribution was to give a lecture on the ‘Progressive evidence on transport air pollution in Kampala: Lessons from tangible gains.’ 

I was able to shed light, firstly o the eveindec of transport air polution and the tangible gains from the unintended consequences of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.

The car-free day will add to the country's ongoing aspirations for green mobility alternatives through transforming the city's transport infrastructure. In 2012, Uganda adopted the Non-Motorized Transport (NMT) policy and the design of the pilot NMT corridor from Namirembe Road to Luwum Street started.

The corridor wascompleted in May 2020, during the first Covid-19-induced lockdown to promote co-existence of all road users and reduce air pollution in a congested city whose roads are largely built for vehicles.

The scale of opportunity that comes with a car-free day in a city like Kampala with a huge burden of transport air pollution is phenomenal.  Follow the 

 for more details about the car-free day webinar.

Kampala Car Free Day, Public Webinar, March, 2023

I was invited by the Institute for African Development, Cornell University to give a lecture on the

'Relationship between Air Quality and COVID-19 in Kampala, Uganda'

The topic was selected as part of the African Development Seminar Series, which seeks to '

examine critical concerns in contemporary Africa

'. The seminar series is designed for both students and faculty, in particualr those interested in African development, as an avenue to explore '

The 2-hour long session was deeply interactive and informative. 

You can reach out to me directly for details of my talk

Cornell University, Institute for African Development Seminar Series 

Courtesy call to the U.S Consulate, Lagos

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Air quality collaborations with the U.S State Department and U.S Diplomatic posts across Africa