Air Quality Monitoring & Data Sharing in Africa and South/Southeast Asia: A Scoping Review

Reliable data on air pollution are fundamental to understanding and taking corrective action to improve air quality. In addition, where data are shared with the public, everyone across private, public and civil society can innovate, collaborate, and apply effective solutions towards clean air. However, air quality (AQ) monitoring, as well as AQ data sharing, are both limited in many low- and middle-income countries. While a few reviews of air quality in Africa and South/Southeast Asia exist, a review focused on monitoring capabilities and data sharing is necessary, especially with growth in non-traditional, non-reference monitoring technologies. We conducted a scoping review based on the Arksey and O’Malley methodological framework along with updates proposed in literature consistent with the PRISMA-ScR (Scoping Review Extension). We implemented a search strategy that was iteratively refined to review diverse sources including scientific and gray literature, air quality data aggregators, and publicly internet-available documents of national governments. We complemented our findings by consulting with experts. We found that AQ monitoring in Africa and South/Southeast Asia is lacking, with very few countries having reference-grade monitoring programs and few sharing the data they collect publicly. We recommend leveraging emerging lower-cost alternatives along with traditional (“reference”) technologies. This is supported by our review of emerging approaches and highlighted case studies of countries like Uganda and Cambodia that have adopted such approaches.