The Million Lives Collective (MLC) and the Judith Neilson Foundation have joined forces to launch the African Cities Innovation Fund (ACIF), a new grant program aimed at catalyzing collaborative innovations for smart, healthy, equitable, and resilient cities in Africa. The fund was formally announced at the International Development Innovation Alliance’s Global Summit in Nairobi on December 3, 2025, and will officially open for applications in Spring next year.
ACIF invites pairs of African innovators to apply for flexible grant funding of up to $75,000 to design and test new collaborative solutions to urban challenges in Africa. According to Abi Taylor, Innovation Lead at the Judith Neilson Foundation, “African cities are growing at a dramatic pace, creating huge opportunity, challenge, and change. Ensuring that cities are places where people can thrive calls for imagination, ambition, innovation, and collaboration.”
Beyond funding, ACIF awardees will benefit from tailored technical assistance, including coaching and partnership support, as well as direct exposure to leading global development stakeholders through the International Development Innovation Alliance’s Collaboration Lab, “Collaborative Scaling for Exponential Impact.”
The MLC is building a pipeline of proven, scale-ready urban innovations in Africa and will precede the launch of ACIF with a call for new members in January next year. Jite Phido, Senior Program Manager at MLC and Results for Development, says, “Across the continent, innovators, community organizations, entrepreneurs, artists, and public sector actors are already finding and scaling 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.”
ACIF builds on MLC’s work identifying and advancing impactful solutions to sustainable development challenges since 2019. The fund will continue to build the evidence base for funding collaboration as a powerful lever of change, particularly in the face of diminishing aid budgets and complex global challenges.
Edwin Muroki, 4Life Solutions Kenya, praises ACIF for promoting collaboration between innovators and local institutions, saying, “The African Cities Innovation Fund is significant because it promotes the kind of collaboration that urban impact in Africa demands… A fund that prioritizes these collaborative enablers gives scale-ready innovators the runway to de-risk expansion into new cities, combine complementary strengths, and sustain quality as they grow across diverse African contexts.”
