About us
Our purpose
UrbanBetter exists to ensure equitable access to health-enabling, climate-resilient urban environments. We work across sectors to equip young people, communities and institutions with the evidence, skills and pathways needed to shape decisions that determine how cities are designed, governed and experienced.
What if?
What if cities were designed to generate health and climate resilience, shaped by those who live and move within them?
What if youth were equipped not just to adapt to health and climate risks, but to shape the decisions that produce these risks?
What if evidence, imagination and pathways to act were embedded in everyday urban governance?
What if Africa led the way in building healthier, climate-resilient and more hopeful urban futures?
And what if hope itself were intentionally cultivated as infrastructure – through agency, evidence and pathways to act?
These questions shape the UrbanBetter ecosystem, transforming lived experience and community insight to evidence, evidence to action, and action to long-term systems change, institutional learning and sustained urban transformation.
Our approach is grounded in a clear conviction..
To accelerate climate action, we must act where its impacts are most concentrated, most visible and most consequential for people’s lives.
Health in cities is the front line of climate action.
Cities generate most global greenhouse gas emissions and concentrate exposure to air pollution, extreme heat and unsafe mobility. Urban health is the human face of climate change, and acting on health in cities offers some of the fastest and most equitable pathways to climate impact.
Africa’s cities matter to the world’s future.
Africa’s cities are growing faster than anywhere else and are home to the world’s youngest population. Decisions made now will lock in either high-risk, high-emissions trajectories or healthier, climate-resilient ones for generations. Africa’s urban transition offers a unique opportunity to design health, climate resilience and equity into cities from the outset, with lessons for cities worldwide.
Youth co-governance is essential to accelerating climate action.
Young people are the largest urban demographic in Africa and will live longest with the consequences of today’s decisions – yet they are systematically excluded from shaping them. Accelerating climate action requires equipping youth with the skills, evidence, coalitions and pathways to participate meaningfully in urban decision-making. Without this, even the best technical solutions risk failing at scale.
Our action is urgent
The future of urban is African. And the future of Africa is urban.
There is growing recognition of the need for integrated action on health and climate for development; and the need to focus on cities as they are where most greenhouse gases are emitted.
Health co-benefits can be achieved through climate mitigation if actions focus on improving air quality, making environments more conducive to physical activity and increasing access to healthy foods.
Africa is the most rapidly urbanising continent with the youngest population. It can and should lead in rethinking cities as spaces and places that proactively create health and climate resilience as part of sustainable urban development.
We envisage a future where:
Cities are designed to promote health and climate resilience by default.
Young people are equipped to shape decisions, not just adapt to their consequences.
African cities lead globally in demonstrating what healthy, climate-resilient urban futures can look like.
Hope is cultivated and sustained through infrastructure that builds agency, evidence and pathways to act.
