Air pollution is responsible for more than 7 million deaths annually, with 9 out of 10 people breathing air that exceeds WHO guideline limits. Low- and middle-income countries suffer from the highest exposure. Evidence is emerging from studies showing that air pollution may worsen the severity of COVID-19 symptoms, and particularly in regular flu seasons, put pressure on already overburdened public health systems. Green fiscal stimulus and finance packages and building back better after COVID-19 offer opportunities to address air pollution in more sustainable, low-cost and low-impact ways. Nature-based solutions, combined with participatory and empowering approaches, can contribute to economic recovery and environmental improvements, while also building resilience to future pandemics and other impacts on human health and well-being. While monitoring and timely information on air quality is a basis for decision-making and citizen engagement into local solutions and improvements, improved capacities are urgently needed for the deployment and use of low-cost solutions that can be maintained easily. Nature-based solutions could be most effective across specific sectors. Improved capacities are also needed to effectively plan and design tailored approaches to nature-based solutions to mitigate urban air pollution and promote healthier urban living. This project will promote an evidence-based and capacity-building approach at the national, municipal and community levels in Serbia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to improve capacities to design and implement tailored nature-based approaches to mitigate urban air pollution and promote healthier urban lifestyles through sustainable urban development planning. Where monitoring capacity is currently lacking or insufficient, the project will also build capacities for the development or the revision of existing air quality monitoring and management plans. This work is expected to contribute to strengthened capacities of beneficiary cities in the Western Balkans (Belgrade, Serbia) and Central Asia (Dushanbe, Tajikistan and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan) for the development and implementation of policies and plans promoting green and cost-effective policy solutions to urban air pollution and improving resilience to the health, social, economic and environmental impacts of COVID-19, which will be demonstrated by the target countries and cities applying developed capacities for conducting assessments of air pollution and its impacts on human health, identifying through healthy urban living assessments priority nature-based solutions and their potential to promote healthier urban lifestyles, designing and improving air quality monitoring and management plans, providing actionable information to the public, deploying and testing low-cost air quality monitoring and sensor networks, and planning and designing approaches to nature-based solutions tailored to specific urban areas.