Air pollution remains the biggest environmental health risk especially in developing countries and cities in Asia. Of 7 million premature deaths estimated to be related to air pollution globally, one-third occur in the Asia-Pacific. As a result, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reports that 92% of people in the Asia-Pacific region are exposed to levels of air pollution that pose a significant risk to health. The overwhelming majority of these people live in cities and megacities. The cost of exposure to air pollution in Asia, and the potential economic benefit if air pollution problems can be addressed, is estimated to be some $12 trillion per year.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) Technical Assistance (TA) 9608 on “Strengthening Knowledge and Actions for Air Quality Improvement” aims to tackle some of these urban challenges by working closely with key stakeholders in order to come up with “adequate policy actions and technological solutions” for air quality management and finally “building the business case through the preparation of City-Level Clean Air Action Plans (CAAPs) along with investment plans to implement CAAPs.”
The project is targeting seven cities, consisting of primary cities—Erdenet, Ho Chi Minh and Peshawar—and secondary cities— Faridpur, La Trinidad, Sialkot and Vinh Yen— in five developing member countries (DMCs) namely: Bangladesh, Mongolia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Viet Nam, to promote sharing of AQM knowledge and experiences through various regional events such as learning evidence-based best results from People’s Republic of China (PRC) and other countries and case studies.
Under the leadership of the Sustainable Development and Climate Change (SDCC) Department of ADB, this project is being implemented by the selected consortium “Ricardo Energy & Environment and Clean Air Asia” working with national consultants.
NACOM is working at Faridpur with support from ADB/Ricardo in close cooperation with the Department of Environment and Faridpur Municipality,
