About us
Why we exist
The UrbanBetter Academy amplifies the impact of Cityzens’ action by strengthening how evidence, leadership and coalitions shape urban policy, investment and implementation. We do this by building coalitions linking youth, researchers, city leaders and communities, developing futures-oriented skills and leadership, co-producing actionable research and data insights with Cityzens Hubs and governments, and mobilising diaspora knowledge capital as a strategic resource for healthy, sustainable urban transformation.
The need
Africa’s cities are at the centre of accelerating health and climate risks. While urban decisions shape how people move, breathe and live, much of the evidence, capacity and institutional infrastructure needed to act remains misaligned with lived experience. Those most affected—particularly young people—are rarely equipped or connected through coalitions that allow them to influence the choices shaping their futures. Closing this gap requires new approaches to generating lived-experience-led evidence, building skills, and strengthening coalitions with clear pathways to urban change, while mobilising knowledge across Africa and its diaspora.
Evidence gaps grounded in lived experience
Urban decision-making often relies on data that overlooks how people, especially young people, experience health and climate risks in their everyday environments.
Lived experience reveals critical gaps in what is measured, where evidence is available and how health and climate impacts intersect in practice. Without mechanisms to surface and analyse these gaps, policies and investments risk missing what matters on the ground.
Skills and agency to shape decisions across sectors
Young people are highly exposed to urban health and climate risks and deeply invested in the future of their cities, yet few are equipped with the skills, confidence and pathways needed to shape decisions through careers in public, private and civil society institutions.
There is a need to build a pipeline of leaders across sectors who can apply evidence, systems thinking and anticipatory approaches to influence policy, planning, investment and practice over time.
Missing Global Africa institutional mechanisms and coalition
Africa’s knowledge and leadership capacity, including that of its youth and diaspora, is widely distributed, but few institutional mechanisms or coalitions connect this capacity to urban decision-making in sustained ways.
Without structures that link youth, researchers, practitioners and diaspora expertise, opportunities to shape healthier, climate-resilient urban futures remain fragmented and under-realised.
The opportunity
Africa’s rapid urbanisation presents a narrow but powerful window to shape healthier, climate-resilient cities before high-risk systems are locked in. With much of the continent’s urban infrastructure and investment still to come, the Academy mobilises Global Africa’s intellectual capacity to shape these decisions by strengthening the analysis and institutional uptake of locally generated evidence, building future-ready leadership and sustaining coalitions that raise ambition and accelerate action.
We have the chance to:
Ground decisions in lived experience – ensuring that evidence generated from everyday urban realities is analysed and taken up within institutions, so health and climate considerations shape policy, planning and investment choices.
Build a cross-sector leadership pipeline – equipping a new generation of leaders across public, private and civil society institutions with the skills and agency to apply evidence, navigate complexity and shape the futures of their cities.
Align and raise ambition through coalitions that connect youth, researchers, practitioners and decision-makers, aligning priorities and raising ambition to translate ideas, evidence and leadership into sustained, healthy, climate-resilient urban action.
A networked centre of excellence
The UrbanBetter Academy operates as a networked R&D and Training Centre of Excellence, delivered through a globally distributed, multi-nodal model.
It comprises nodes hosted by universities in Africa and Diaspora
Rather than functioning from a single location, the Academy is composed of nodes hosted by partner universities and research centres in Africa and the diaspora, operating in formal partnership with UrbanBetter.
Each node leverages thematic and place-based expertise
Researchers within nodes contribute to the Academy’s core programmes within Africa based on its strengths and regional or thematic climate-health focus areas, such as pollution, active mobility, the built environment, biodiversity and food systems.
This model enables timely access to intellectual expertise for Africa’s Cityzens Hubs and cities
By drawing on expertise from across the continent and the diaspora, Cityzens Hubs and city government partners are able to access the analysis, technical insight and support they need as priorities emerge.UrbanBetter acts as the secretariat, coordinating activities, alignment and learning across the ecosystem to ensure this support is coherent and well integrated.
We value equity and participation, and take a data-driven, complexity-informed approach to health and climate action in cities.
Our partners
