Towards Cleaner Cities: Stakeholder Solutions for Combating Urban Air Pollution Enforcement Challenges in Ghana

Air pollution governance research has focused predominantly on Europe, China, and India, with comparatively limited attention to the governance and implementation challenges of air pollution control in Africa. Existing African research has often considered environmental regulation broadly, with less emphasis on the institutional, political, technical, economic, and social barriers that constrain effective air pollution governance. This study applied a systems-based, participatory approach to identify barriers and develop context-specific strategies for strengthening air pollution governance in Ghana. Four future workshops (FWs) were conducted in Takoradi, Kumasi, Tamale, and Accra in 2024, involving 20-35 institutional stakeholders at each site. The FW comprised five phases: preparation, critical analysis, fantasy, implementation, and action. Participants identified and thematically grouped barriers, generated potential solutions, and assessed proposed strategies through SWOT analysis and a desirability-feasibility (DF) prioritization process. Desirability and feasibility were scored by participating groups on a five-point scale and subsequently converted to percentages. Participants identified 59 barriers, which were grouped into seven domains: politics and governance, education and training, technology, funding and economics, institutional collaboration, legal and regulatory frameworks, and sociocultural factors. More than 200 potential solutions were generated and subsequently refined through group deliberation and consensus into 90 actionable strategies. The prioritized strategies addressed multiple interconnected dimensions of air pollution governance, emphasizing stronger institutional coordination, improved regulatory and enforcement capacity, enhanced technical and human-resource capacity, sustainable financing, improved public and stakeholder engagement, and strengthened use of evidence for decision-making. All prioritized strategies achieved at least 60% on both feasibility and desirability, indicating broad stakeholder support for their potential implementation. The findings demonstrate that effective air pollution governance in Ghana requires integrated, multisectoral, and context-specific action rather than isolated technical interventions. The participatory framework provides a practical mechanism for identifying governance barriers, developing locally relevant responses, and prioritizing feasible and desirable actions. In the context of limited dedicated national air pollution policy, the findings can support efforts to strengthen existing air quality management arrangements and inform the development of more coherent governance and implementation strategies. The approach may also be adaptable to other African settings facing similar institutional, resource, and environmental challenges.