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Good practice Imported

AQ54 — Open Air-Quality Sensors Hosted at Abidjan's Pharmacies

Côte d'Ivoire · Abidjan · See the Côte d'Ivoire profile · See the Abidjan profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 85% 52/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Abidjan data company data354 and an inter-institutional task force have installed 18-20 open PM2.5 monitors at pharmacies, chosen for reliable power and security, feeding a public dashboard that alerts residents above 30 µg/m3, with EPIC funding to eventually scale across Africa.

18–20 monitors
Air-quality monitors installed (2024–present)
30 µg/m3 PM2.5
Public alert threshold
~50 µg/m3
Rush-hour PM2.5 spike recorded in earlier Abidjan study (2020–2021)
AQ54 — Open Air-Quality Sensors Hosted at Abidjan's Pharmacies

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
data354, with Côte d'Ivoire's Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Health, District Autonome d'Abidjan and the National Pharmacists' Association
Period
2024–present
Keywords
air quality, civic data, public-private partnership, open data

Context

Côte d'Ivoire has essentially no public real-time air-quality data despite well-documented urban pollution; an earlier 2020-2021 peer-reviewed study of five Abidjan sites recorded morning rush-hour PM2.5 spikes reaching about 50 µg/m3, more than three times the WHO daily guideline.

Objectives

Local data company data354, backed by a 2024 grant from the University of Chicago's EPIC Air Quality Fund, set out to build Côte d'Ivoire's first open, city-wide PM2.5 monitoring network as a first step toward open air-quality data across Africa.

Activities

data354 formed an inter-institutional task force with the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Health, the District Autonome d'Abidjan and the National Pharmacists' Association, and deployed Quanta-built AirQino outdoor monitors at pharmacies — chosen for their reliable 24/7 power and security — training pharmacists to interpret readings and advise customers.

Results

As of the latest public reporting, 18-20 monitors were installed and feeding an open visualisation platform where residents can sign up for alerts when PM2.5 exceeds 30 µg/m3; documented next steps include integrating readings into weather bulletins, a mobile app, and further pharmacist training.

Conclusions

Public reporting to date describes deployment milestones rather than measured health, behavioural or policy outcomes, so the project should be read as an early-stage, promising pilot rather than a proven impact story.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Short (< 1 year)
Staffing & skills
data354 (Abidjan-based data company, lead implementer), Ministry of Environment (Côte d'Ivoire), Ministry of Health (Côte d'Ivoire), District Autonome d'Abidjan, National Pharmacists' Association, pharmacists hosting and interpreting sensor readings

Conditions for success

  • Hosting sensors at pharmacies for reliable 24/7 power and security
  • A signed inter-institutional task-force convention across ministries, city government and the pharmacists' association
  • Grant funding from an external fund (EPIC Air Quality Fund)
  • Training pharmacists to interpret readings for the public

Common failure modes

  • Funding currently rests on a single 2024 grant with no reported multi-year funding commitment

Commonly funded by

Philanthropic / foundation funding National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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