The July 21, 2025, Science-Policy Practitioners Dialogue in Nairobi aimed to connect scientific evidence with policy action on air quality, health, and climate.
In a city like Nairobi, where congestion, air pollution, informal settlements, and flash floods are part of daily life, the intersection of climate, health, and urban planning is no longer an academic question; it’s a public emergency.
Yet the real breakthrough lies not just in knowing the problems, but in changing how they’re solved.
At the July 21, 2025, Science-Policy Practitioners Dialogue held in Nairobi, the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) presented a compelling analysis titled “.”
The presentation offered a multi-layered view of how rapid urbanization, environmental degradation, and weak institutional coordination have amplified Nairobi’s vulnerability to climate-related health impacts.
But more importantly, it explored how science, data, and inclusive planning can turn that narrative around.
The Urban Surge—and Its Hidden Cost
Africa’s urban population has more than doubled since 1990, rising from 31% to 54% by 2020.
In Kenya, urbanization continues apace: with an annual urban growth rate of 2.1%, nearly 15 million people—about a third of the national population-now live in urban areas.
But this expansion has not been without cost. According to SEI’s presentation, urbanization in Kenya has largely manifested as rising informal settlements, increasing poverty, and growing inequality.
In cities like Nairobi, urban growth has often occurred without adequate infrastructure, pushing more people into climate-vulnerable areas like floodplains and unregulated hillsides.
Air Pollution: The Unseen Threat
One of the starkest climate-health connections highlighted in the presentation was Nairobi’s worsening air quality.
Factors such as aging vehicles, industrial emissions, and open waste burning have contributed to unhealthy levels of air pollution, posing serious risks, especially to children, pregnant women, and the elderly.
The presentation stressed the need for integrated planning for air pollution and climate change in Africa, calling for policy frameworks that tackle both issues simultaneously rather than in isolation.
This kind of planning could dramatically reduce respiratory illnesses while also addressing broader environmental challenges.
Climate Data: The Missing Piece
Despite the escalating risks, the presentation noted that a lack of adequate climate data remains a major barrier to action.
Urban planners and public health officials often lack access to reliable, localized, and up-to-date climate information, making it difficult to anticipate future risks or assess the success of interventions.
This absence of data hampers both formal and informal planning processes, from city master plans to community-led upgrades.
Without strong data systems, cities like Nairobi are left vulnerable to climate shocks and unable to design resilient infrastructure.
Luthuli Avenue: A Local Model of What’s Possible
SEI didn’t just highlight the challenges.
The presentation also offered a hopeful look at how solutions can take root, starting with the transformation of Luthuli Avenue in Nairobi’s central business district.
Once infamous for congestion and pollution, Luthuli Avenue was redesigned through a participatory approach under the i-CMiiST project—short for Implementing Creative Methodological Innovations for Inclusive Sustainable Transport Planning.
By engaging local communities through consultative workshops and citizen science, planners were able to co-create a greener, more pedestrian-friendly public space.
This kind of inclusive, science-informed planning is exactly what Nairobi needs more of, the presentation argued.
The Core Barriers Holding Cities Back
Even with successful pilots like Luthuli Avenue, systemic obstacles continue to prevent cities from scaling up resilience work. SEI’s presentation identified several of these persistent barriers:
- Lack or inadequacy of climate data for planning and decision-making.
- Limited coordination among sectors such as health, planning, transport, and environment.
- Invisibility of vulnerable groups—including people in informal settlements, women, youth, and persons with disabilities—in urban decision-making processes.
- Weak integration of climate considerations into mainstream urban development programs, such as slum upgrading and infrastructure expansion.
- Insufficient financial and technical capacity at the local and county government levels.
- A reactive rather than proactive approach to urban climate risks, often responding to disasters rather than preventing them.
These barriers are not just bureaucratic; they have real consequences for the health, mobility, and livelihoods of millions of urban residents.
A Toolkit for Urban Transformation: Opportunities in Sight
Despite these challenges, the presentation outlined multiple opportunities that Nairobi and other African cities can seize to accelerate climate-resilient development:
- Mainstreaming climate change into urban planning frameworks, including County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs), County Spatial Plans (CSPs), Climate Change Action Plans, and County Environmental Outlooks.
- Leveraging participatory tools, such as the Urban Toolbox and citizen science approaches, to co-design urban solutions with communities.
- Scaling successful interventions like the Luthuli Avenue redesign to other neighborhoods and cities.
- Strengthening institutional linkages between city planners, public health officials, and climate scientists to enable more coordinated action.
- Investing in data systems and digital infrastructure, including environmental monitoring tools, GIS mapping, and early warning systems.
- Embedding inclusive governance mechanisms to ensure marginalized voices are part of urban planning and policy implementation.
These aren’t abstract ideas—they’re grounded in ongoing programs like the Kenya Informal Settlements Improvement Projects (KISIP) and the Kenya Urban Support Program (KUSP), both of which aim to promote inclusive, integrated urban development.
Inclusion: The Heart of Resilience
At its core, the presentation emphasized that resilience is about people, not just infrastructure.
It’s about ensuring that vulnerable populations are not only protected from climate risks but also empowered to help shape the solutions.
To this end, SEI posed two reflection questions to the audience—questions that could form the basis for a new kind of urban social contract:
- What institutional arrangements are needed to ensure better coordination among city planners and health stakeholders to implement healthy climate-resilient urbanization programs?
- How can the voice of disadvantaged groups be incorporated within urban planning, management, and decision-making?
These aren’t rhetorical questions—they’re roadmaps to a more inclusive and sustainable urban future.
From Knowing to Doing
The message from SEI’s Nairobi Climate Change–Health Nexus Landscape was clear: the tools, knowledge, and frameworks to build climate-resilient cities already exist.
What’s lacking is the alignment, political will, and resource allocation to scale them.
Moving forward, Nairobi and similar cities have a unique opportunity to lead the way not just in reacting to climate-related crises, but in proactively designing healthier, more inclusive environments.
That means planning with data, listening to communities, and coordinating across sectors. It means investing in both digital tools and social trust.
And yes, it means recognizing that science has everything to do with it.
Conclusion: A City at a Crossroads
As Nairobi grows, so too does the urgency of building climate-smart systems that serve everyone.
The Science-Policy Practitioners Dialogue on July 21 offered not just a diagnosis, but a way forward anchored in evidence, collaboration, and inclusion.
If implemented at scale, the strategies discussed could transform not just Nairobi’s streetscapes but its entire approach to urban health, mobility, and governance.
Because in the end, the real question isn’t “What does science have to do with it?” but “How soon can we start applying it where it matters most?”
This article is based on the Stockholm Environment Institute’s (SEI) presentation titled “Nairobi’s Climate Change–Health Nexus Landscape,” delivered during the Science-Policy Practitioners Dialogue held on July 21, 2025, in Nairobi.
