Bugema University has today formalized a strategic research partnership with the Carbon Monoxide Research for Africa (COR4A) initiative by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The agreement, signed on 15th April 2026, marks a significant milestone in advancing air quality science, environmental health research, and evidence-based policy development across Africa.
The MOU was signed by Prof. Israel M. Kafeero, Vice Chancellor of Bugema University, and Dr. Antony Nyombi, Chief Coordination Officer of COR4A. Dr. Rosette Kabuye, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academics at Bugema University, also appended her signature to the agreement, underscoring the university’s full academic leadership commitment to the partnership. The signing took place in the presence of senior institutional representatives from both organizations.
Dr. Antony Nyombi
The man behind the mission
To understand why this partnership matters, you need to understand the man who made it happen.
Dr. Antony Nyombi is not your average scholar. With a PhD in Environmental Chemistry from Cranfield University, UK, based on countless years of combustion research, field research, and scientific publication, Dr. Nyombi has spent over 15 years at the intersection of science, industry, and policy, always asking one urgent question: what is the air doing to us, and what can we do about it?
His PhD was jointly funded by the Carbon Monoxide Research Trust (CORT, UK), the Boat Safety Scheme (UK), and the Katie Haines Memorial Trust (UK) producing more than six peer-reviewed publications in leading scientific journals and demonstrating up to a 40% reduction in CO emissions using catalytic fuel treatment technologies. The results were so compelling that CORT didn’t want the science to stop at the UK border. They wanted Africa.
And so, Dr. Nyombi came home armed with world-class expertise, international backing, and a mission to build what would become COR4A. A platform. A movement. A scientific conscience for the continent. He has since directed industrial hygiene programs across multiple operational sites, contributed to Uganda’s major Tilenga upstream oil and gas project, developed greenhouse gas inventories exceeding 100,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, and built a growing network of university partnerships across Africa and the United Kingdom. Today, Bugema University joins that network.
What this means for science, students, and society
This is not a ceremonial agreement destined to collect dust on an office shelf. It is a living, working collaboration built to deliver real, measurable impact at every level.
Students at Bugema University will be among the first to benefit, with full or partial sponsorships available for those undertaking COR4A research programs, a direct investment in the next generation of African environmental scientists. Faculty members will supervise these students, deepening the institution’s research capacity while producing joint peer-reviewed publications that place Bugema University’s name firmly on the global scientific map. Beyond that, the university gains access to international grant proposals coordinated through COR4A, opening doors to donor-funded research opportunities and a continent-wide network of academic institutions and partners that would otherwise take years to build independently.
The research itself sits at the heart of everyday African life. Charcoal stoves. Cooking fires. Diesel generators. Boda-boda engines. Gas burners. These are not just features of African households and streets, they are sources of carbon monoxide and combustion-related pollutants that accumulate silently, causing headaches, organ damage, and in the worst cases, death. COR4A’s work will investigate how these pollutants form, how they disperse, how they build up in homes and communities, and critically, how they can be reduced. The findings will not sit in academic libraries. They will be taken directly to governments, health ministries, and policymakers anywhere that evidence can drive meaningful change.
To support this work, COR4A has already secured state-of-the-art CO, CO2, NOx, and related emissions monitoring equipment donated by Kane International Limited, with technical backing from the Carbon Monoxide Research Trust (CORT, UK) the same organization that first backed Dr. Nyombi’s research years ago in the UK. The tools are ready. The science is ready. The university is ready.
The program is currently in its preparation phase, with students being carefully selected and thoroughly orientated on the research from concept to execution before the program officially launches. This is not a rush job. It is a deliberate, well-structured scientific endeavors designed to produce results that stand up to the highest international scrutiny.
In a world where Africa is too often on the receiving end of global research studied, analyzed, and written about from afar COR4A and Bugema University are flipping the script. African scientists. African universities. African evidence. African solutions.
That is what was signed on the 18th of May 2026. Not just a Memorandum of Understanding but a memo to the world that Africa’s environmental health story will now be told by Africans, backed by world-class science, and driven by an unshakeable commitment to the health of this continent’s people.
For more information about COR4A and its research initiatives, contact: Email: info@cor4a.org
Website: https://cor4a.org Location: Kampala Central, Mawanda II Road, Kampala, Uganda
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