The USAID Clean Air Green Cities project addresses air pollution and its health impacts in Hanoi and other cities in Vietnam by working with local actors and build collective actions. Local actors include youth, schools, communities, businesses and government agencies. On June 1, the project coordinated with Hanoi’s authorities and thirty environmental organizations and groups to organize the “Clean Air Green Hanoi” Festival Day in the city, which attracted 3,000 people.

Through educational games, exhibitions, street music performance, the event aimed to improve the public understanding of air pollution issues and of existing practical solutions, including citizen science on air monitoring, green transportation, clean energy, and zero waste practice. By convening multiple local stakeholders around collective actions on air pollution like through this event, the project has mobilized more than $70,000 from local resources: ten companies, three governmental agencies, and twenty environmental groups.

So what? By engaging multiple stakeholders, local financial resources were mobilized to address environmental health priorities, providing an important experience on organizing across the private sector, public sector, and local organizations to solve problems.