Outdoor air quality funding to sub-Saharan Africa collapsed by 91% in just one year, falling from $129 million in 2022 to a mere $11.8 million in 2023.
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Outdoor air quality funding to sub-Saharan Africa collapsed by 91% in just one year, falling from $129 million in 2022 to a mere $11.8 million in 2023.
This left the region with less than 1% of global clean-air finance, despite having the fastest urbanisation rate in the world and some of the highest pollution burdens on the planet.
At the same time, development finance for projects that extend fossil fuel use surged by 80% worldwide to $9.5 billion — more than 2.5 times the amount directed toward clean air.
These findings come from a new report, released on Wednesday by the Clean Air Fund and the Climate Policy Initiative, which is the only global analysis of international development funding for tackling air pollution.
The dramatic drop in funding for sub-Saharan Africa was driven largely by one major donor stepping back, explained Vumile Senene, the country lead for the Clean Air Fund in South Africa.
“That shows just how fragile and concentrated current funding is,” he said. “The whole picture can shift on the decision of a single institution. We are watching closely to see whether this proves to be an anomaly or the start of a much more worrying trend.”
Senene said the lesson is clear — sub-Saharan Africa urgently needs more diversified and sustained investment.
“Donors should be helping countries build the technical and institutional capacity to act on air pollution, not stepping back. Without that, we risk locking in decades of dirty, high-emission growth and leaving some of the world’s most vulnerable populations behind.”
The Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) and the Asian Development Bank provided two-thirds of global outdoor air quality funding from 2019 to 2023. Jica was the largest donor overall, while the bank was the largest outdoor air quality donor by far in 2023, providing 44% of funding.
The fall in funding has left cities in sub-Saharan Africa, some of the world’s fastest-urbanising and most polluted, in a “clean-air finance desert”, even as they urgently need investment to manage population growth and emissions, said Senene, the former director of air quality management at South Africa’s then department of environmental affairs.
Funding is also failing to reach populations with the highest exposure. Only two of the 10 countries with the highest PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) concentrations — Bangladesh and India — appear among the top 10 recipients of air quality funding per person in 2023. The remainder — the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon — received almost no support, despite high pollution and rapid urbanisation.
The report noted a “regional disparity”, where funding is still highly concentrated in just three countries, the Philippines, Bangladesh and China, which together received 65% of global outdoor air quality funding between 2019 and 2023.
“With sub-Saharan Africa experiencing the fastest rate of urbanisation in the world, which brings drastically increasing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, action on air pollution is much needed,” it said.
High stakes
Air pollution is one of the world’s largest environmental health crises, causing an estimated 5.7 million deaths annually — a figure projected to rise to 6.2 million by 2040, without stronger action.
In Africa, independent analysis estimates that there were 1.1 million premature deaths in 2019 from toxic air — more than deaths from tobacco, alcohol, traffic accidents and unsafe water combined.
Nearly 2 000 children under five die daily from air pollution, while exposure increases risks of asthma, strokes, heart attacks, cancer and dementia.
In South Africa, dirty air was estimated to cause 30 million lost workdays in a 2025 report, translating into billions in lost productivity. Independent analysis suggests that, in 2019, air pollution caused an estimated 25 800 premature deaths in the country, representing 5% to 6% of all fatalities.
Beyond human health, air pollution damages ecosystems and biodiversity and is closely linked to climate change through fossil-fuel combustion.
In May, the World Health Organisation’s World Health Assembly endorsed a voluntary target to halve the health impacts of human-caused air pollution by 2040, marking the first time air quality has been included in a WHO roadmap with a clear global health target.
South Africa holds the G20 Presidency under the theme “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability”. For the first time, air quality has been placed on the G20 environment and climate workstream as a standalone priority, signalling growing recognition of its importance for health, development and climate.
“This is not symbolic,” Dion George, the minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment, said in the report’s foreword. “Clean air is central to health, to development, to climate ambition and to justice.
“It also aligns with our broader mandate — by investing in cleaner energy, sustainable mobility and robust environmental governance, we can grow the economy, create jobs and strengthen the ethical and capable institutions our people deserve.”
Fossil fuel finance surges
While outdoor air quality funding plummeted, support for fossil-fuel-prolonging projects grew sharply. These are projects that extend or lock in fossil fuel use, even if they aren’t direct investments in coal, oil or gas.
“This includes fossil fuel infrastructure, like refineries or coal plants, but also related projects, such as airport expansions, that increase long-term demand for fossil fuels,” Senene said.
“But what data shows is that the biggest sums are still going to clearly fossil-heavy projects, such as a $1.5 billion coal plant in Bangladesh and a $1.4 billion oil refinery upgrade in Iraq. These drive air pollution and undermine global health and climate goals.”
These are the kind of projects that should not be funded by development finance and “that will be taken away from any positive air quality projects”, he said.
“We had hoped that fossil fuel-prolonging funding had decreased. We saw this a couple of years ago, followed by an increase last year. It’s hard to know exactly why this is happening. Some of it may be due to the emergence of new development donors or increased reporting but we do know that this funding needs to stop and be redirected toward clean energy and air quality.”
According to the report, some countries with the highest pollution levels, including parts of sub-Saharan Africa, receive more fossil fuel-prolonging finance than clean-air funding, “perpetuating a cycle of vulnerability”.
Notably, it cited how in 2023, Bangladesh, the leading recipient of fossil fuel-prolonging funding between 2019 and 2023, received $1.1 billion more in fossil fuel-prolonging funding than total air quality funding, despite having the world’s highest annual mean concentrations of PM2.5 in 2022.
“It seems counterproductive to finance both fossil fuel-prolonging projects and air quality projects, because any air quality benefits that result will be at least partly counteracted by increased air pollution from fossil fuel sources,” the report said.
“However, the data shows this happening with some donors. For example, the Japan International Cooperation Agency scores highly as a funder for total air quality funding, but in recent years has also been responsible for significant fossil fuel-prolonging investments, including the Matarbari ultra super critical coal-fired power project in Bangladesh, which represented 56% of Bangladesh’s total fossil fuel-prolonging finance in 2023.”
‘Africa’s pollution challenge growing faster’
Senene added that there is no official benchmark for “adequate” clean-air funding for sub-Saharan Africa, but “it’s clear we’re nowhere close”.
Even returning to 2022 levels of about $130 million would only restore the region’s previous baseline. To meet real need, funding would have to rise into the hundreds of millions — if not billions — each year.
“The number matters less than the direction of travel. Africa’s cities are growing fast and the pollution challenge is growing faster. What’s vital now is that investment reaches the people breathing the dirtiest air and that donors use existing climate and health finance to deliver clean-air benefits, rather than creating another small pot that can vanish overnight.”
The authors urge governments and development banks to embed clean-air objectives in climate and development finance, direct more resources to regions like Africa and end aid that prolongs fossil fuel use.
Senene highlighted the air quality toolkit for development finance institutions, which was launched in April and endorsed by key institutions.
“It shows how integrating clean air into climate and development projects can deliver multiple benefits — better health, stronger economies and faster climate action — without requiring new streams of finance.”
He added that the launch of the Africa clean-air plan earlier this year provides a framework for donors to support regional, national and local action.
“We can also see South Africa leading globally to drive air quality action, through making air quality a priority in the G20 this year. We need finance to follow this leadership.”