Our dual approach
UrbanBetter is a learning collaborative and advocacy platform.
We foster shared learning, knowledge exchange and public engagement, connecting and mobilising individuals, communities and organisations for healthy sustainable urban environments.
UrbanBetter
Oni et al.
Our dual approach to health-proofing the future of cities focuses on increasing the supply of healthy environments, by designing health into the fabric of cities and on building a youth-led movement to increase the demand for natural, built and social environments that make the healthy choice the easy sustainable choice.
Spotlight 01
Cityzens for Clean Air Campaign
The UrbanBetter Cityzens for Clean Air is a youth-led campaign on clean air and physical activity to support evidence-informed advocacy for healthy climate- resilient public spaces in Cape Town, Lagos, and Accra.
We recruited 26 Cityzen Run Leaders to lead pack runs in Cape Town, Accra and Lagos that captured information about the air quality and features of the environment that make it easy or more difficult to run. We then worked with the Run Leaders to use this information to design advocacy tools and tactics being implemented by youth across Africa in November during COP27.
Spotlight 02
A blog by
Waziri Mainasara Abubakar
"...the excellent air quality I noted in the middle of the park made me think: we need more public spaces with clean air."
UrbanBetter Disruptor Waziri Mainasara Abubakar is an economist and fitness enthusiast from Nigeria and one of the #Cityzens4CleanAir advocating for clean air and healthy public spaces.
Core ideas
Public health
A healthy population is crucial for development, and most factors that influence health are in the environments where people live, study, work and play.
Urban epidemiology
A growing majority of people live in urban areas, making people working in urban sectors and systems custodians of health across communities.
Health foresight
Health foresight should be a central strategy for sustainable urban development for better infrastructure, better air, better food, better transport… better cities.
Science diplomacy
Interventions to create health in cities should be equitable, informed by science. Science diplomacy and boundary-spanning partnerships are vital to “transcend what is” towards health-proofed futures.
Youth
Youth can and must play a central role in effecting societal change, increasing the demand for healthy sustainable cities to make the urban better.
SDGs
To achieve Sustainable Development Goal 11 (resilient, inclusive, sustainable cities) and SDG 3 (health), a re-imagination of urban health governance is needed, focused on strengthening systems for health, an umbrella term for factors and systems that influence health.
Values and mission
Our mission is to create health in
urban(ising) places.
Beyond healthcare, we design health into the physical and social urban infrastructure in rapidly developing cities.
Key Statistics
2050
By 2050, the world’s urban population is expected to nearly double, making urbanization one of the twenty-first century’s most transformative trends.
12.6 million
In 2012, 12.6 million people died globally as a result of living or working in an unhealthy environment.
Air
pollution
kills
more Africans than unsafe water or childhood malnutrition.
03
in 10
people
worldwide lack access to safe, readily available water at home.
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