Jakarta, Indonesia seen in a haze caused by air pollution on 16 August, 2023.
Governments, agencies and development banks have spent more aid money on clean air than fossil fuels for the first time on record, a report has found.
However, such projects still receive less than 1% of international development funding, according to the Clean Air Fund, an environmental charity.
Nor has the money been spent in the places that need it most, the report found. Africa received 5% of air quality funding between 2017 and 2021, despite being home to five of the 10 countries with the highest levels of air pollution in the world. At the same time, five polluted Asian countries – China, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Mongolia and Pakistan – received 86% of the funding.
Outdoor air pollution, which was the focus of the Clean Air Fund report, caused 4.2m premature deaths in 2019, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
