Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals: Considerations for Household and Indoor Air Pollution in Nigeria and Ghana

Abstract

Pollution being one of the symbolic features of unsustainable living in today’s world, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals recognise the need to address air pollution for healthy cities and humans. Indoor air pollution in Africa is recognised as one of the leading causes of pulmonary diseases and death, given the high incidence of biomass fuel use in cooking. Yet, several African governments have not proffered effective solutions to the problem of indoor air pollution. In cases where there have been some forms of intervention, they have not been very successful and sustainable. Therefore, this chapter broadly reviews environmental air pollution and specifically indoor air pollution in two West African countries, Nigeria and Ghana. The findings indicate that there is a high incidence of indoor air pollution in sub-Saharan Africa due to widespread home-based enterprises and usage of solid fuels for cooking in poorly ventilated space. Other findings indicate that ambient air pollution has dominated policy documents while indoor air pollution is hardly recognised at the institutional level, with very little effort made in inventory, monitoring, enforcement and abatement. The chapter concludes that there is need for more research on the quality of indoor air. African countries need to establish agencies on indoor air pollution management if the continent is to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals related to air quality by 2030.KeywordsIndoor air pollutionSustainable Development GoalsSub-Saharan AfricaNigeriaGhana