Call for African Urban Innovations

As Africa’s urban population continues to grow at rapid pace, the Million Lives Collective is on the lookout for impactful, scale-ready solutions for smart, healthy, equitable and resilient cities.

If you’re an innovator, entrepreneur or changemaker working to address pressing urban challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa, we want to hear from you!

Apply

Eligibility criteria:

To be considered for the Million Lives Collective’s Call for African Urban Innovations, solutions are expected to:

✔ Demonstrate a credible pathway to impacting one million or more urban African residents currently living on less than $5.50 per day

✔ Be developed by, or implemented in close partnership with, nationals of Sub-Saharan African countries

✔ Align with one or more of the call’s thematic areas

The Challenge

African cities are growing rapidly. Over the next three decades, Africa’s urban population is expected to double from roughly 704 million in 2025 to roughly 1.4 billion by 2050.

This growth places significant pressure on already strained urban infrastructure, resources and services, contributing to limited access to decent housing and livelihoods, increased vulnerability to poverty, poor physical and mental health, food insecurity, and limited access to safe public spaces, alongside the accelerating impacts of climate change.

Yet, African cities are also engines of creativity, enterprise, and community. Reimagining urban futures that are more equitable, inclusive, resilient, and joyful will require locally-led innovation to play a central role in shaping how cities evolve and how people thrive within them.

The Opportunity

Despite the pressures African cities face, the continent’s rapid urbanization presents a powerful opportunity to co-create and scale innovative solutions that can catalyze brighter urban futures for all. In cities across Sub-Saharan Africa, innovators, community organizations, entrepreneurs, artists, and public sector actors are already finding new ways to improve mobility, expand access to resources and services, strengthen local economies, create safe and vibrant public spaces, and build resilience to climate and economic shocks.

In light of this opportunity, the Million Lives Collective with support from the Judith Neilson Foundation, aims to identify and amplify these promising urban solutions, particularly those led by African innovators that have demonstrated strong place-based impact, clear potential for broader systems influence, and thoughtful pathways to scale. We are therefore issuing a call for locally-led innovations that promote smart, healthy, equitable and resilient urban spaces and systems in Africa.

Solutions we’re calling for:

We’re on the lookout for impactful, scale-ready innovations that are advancing thriving urban futures for underserved communities in Sub-Saharan Africa through:

  • Innovations that promote economic development and sustainable livelihoods, while replenishing natural resources and repurposing waste.

  • Innovations that reduce emissions, while supporting communities to adapt and respond to emerging urban climate challenges, including heat stress, flooding, food insecurity and water scarcity.

  • Innovations that improve young people’s access to decent work, skills, transport and urban mobility, with a particular focus on young people, women, girls, refugees and persons with disabilities.

  • Innovations that support inclusive access to sustainable urban technologies, digital services, platforms, or global digital markets.

  • Innovations that create thriving, socially secure, healthy, and joyful urban environments, while contributing to wellbeing for all and strengthening community cohesion and belonging.

Why apply?

Successful applicants will join the Million Lives Collective, gaining:

✔ Increased visibility among leading development agencies, funders and scaling partners

✔ Access to the International Development Innovation Alliance’s global ecosystem of innovation actors, networks and Collaboration Labs

✔ Opportunities to connect with resources and partners that can advance their work

Following successful verification via the Million Lives Collective platform, applicants will also gain the opportunity to apply for the African Cities Innovation Fund (ACIF), a new collaboration grants programme that will be delivered in partnership with the Judith Neilson Foundation in spring 2026. The ACIF programme will support a select cohort of MLC-verified innovators to partner with ecosystem actors such as civil society organizations, other innovators, public or private-sector agencies, or community groups to design and test integrated solutions to pressing urban challenges, leveraging on the potentially exponential impact of their collaborative partnership.

Four pairs of innovators will be invited to apply for ACIF grants of US $75,000 to explore, test, and refine new pathways to collaborative scale. Awardees will also benefit from tailored technical assistance, including coaching and mentoring, and partnership support, as well as exposure to leading global development stakeholders via the International Development Innovation Alliance’s “Collaborative Scaling for Exponential Impact” Collaboration Lab.