Air pollution is the second biggest threat to health in Ghana. Exhaust fumes from the transport sector alone are responsible for almost half of Accra’s particulate concentrations.

The city of Accra is one of the most heavily polluted places in the country. The World Health Organisation estimates that more than 28,000 Ghanaians die prematurely every year as a result of air pollution.

Children in urban schools often endure the adverse effects of vehicle fumes. The Headmaster of Osu Salem school, Emmanuel Tackey knows this very well.

He stated “The school because it is not walled you always find children crossing to get food and all those things. The safety of the students are our priority as an educator. The school is very close to the road and sometimes you would find cars parked in the school and around the school areas.”

For stakeholders, their interest is to move from pollution to solution. City engineers and technocrats pooled from some of the Municipal Assemblies participated in a workshop organized by Clean Air Fund and Global Designing Cities Initiative. The goal is to assist engineers in discovering innovative approaches to prioritize pedestrian mobility and ideas that drastically help reduce pollution within communities.

In some countries, vehicle lanes have been repurposed to bicycle lanes. Vehicles, in other countries, are banned from using certain roads at certain times. In Ghana, two schools from Osu will benefit from the initiative. Sponsors of the initiative, Clean Air Fund believe the project will allow children to play safely in their schools and neighborhoods.

Victoria Owusu Tawiah, an Analyst with Clean Air Fund said “On this project, we are looking at designing or redesigning streets to places children can play within the Korle Klottey municipality.

"In the course of that, we'll be measuring air quality, concentration levels. So, that will be done before the start of the project, the designing itself, during the designing and then post the designing. So, we'll be able to identify pollution hotspot levels.”

Program Manager of GDCI, Hayrettin Gunc explained how this will be done stating “What we'll do is start with a pilot project, select one school and see if we can create a safe space for kids to play, removed from air pollution. And then showing the results so that we can implement these kinds of projects in different parts of the municipality as well. In the next month, we'll be doing some design projects. So, we'll be sharing that with the community as well.”

However, Hayrettin is expecting some challenges. She remarked “There are areas in the neighborhood where there is no sidewalk space and people are forced to walk on the roadbed. We think this creates a road safety risk. In addition to air quality issues. So, I think there will be some challenges with relocating that space, how we can take that space and use it for other uses.”

The Municipal Chief Executive of Korley Klottey Municipality, Samuel Nii Adjei Tawiah pledged to support the initiative to its conclusion.

“We can't remove lanes at this stage. At least, the parking of the vehicles next to the school is something that we all have to come together and engage the restaurants and the nearby offices that parking near the school is not acceptable. The alternative will be maybe you take an Uber and drop and then go in or use public transport or any other public transport. That will be the alternative for now.”

In the near future, the hope is to fill public spaces and areas around schools with more people than vehicles that pollute all day.