AirQo — Makerere University's Low-Cost Air-Quality Sensor Network for African Cities

AirQo was founded in 2015 at Makerere University's College of Computing and Information Sciences in Kampala, Uganda, by engineer Bainomugisha and colleagues, to address the near-total absence of ground-level air-quality monitoring across most African cities.
The team designed its own low-cost sensor units (roughly $150 each, using dual PMS5003 particulate sensors) built to run on solar or battery power and withstand dust, heat and unreliable connectivity. The network has grown from a Kampala pilot to more than 200 sensors deployed across Kampala, Nairobi, Lagos and Accra, backed by $4.3 million in Google.org funding, with AirQo named a Google.org 'Leader to Watch.'
AirQo's readings underpin peer-reviewed research, including studies published in Environmental Science: Atmospheres documenting monthly PM2.5 concentrations of 60-100 µg/m³ in Kampala — several times World Health Organization guideline levels — and analyses of how COVID-19 lockdowns affected local air pollution.
The initiative remains substantially donor- and grant-funded (chiefly Google.org and research grants) rather than embedded in recurring public budgets, a common sustainability risk for civic-sensor networks; publicly available sources document the data's use in research but not yet a specific government policy formally adopted as a direct result of AirQo's readings.

Read the full analysis: https://airqo.net