From Community Evidence to Urban Action: How Does Local Knowledge Actually Shape City Decisions?

Communities are often the first to see how climate, health, and urban systems are affecting everyday life. They know which streets flood, where extreme heat is becoming dangerous, which services are failing, and how those pressures are experienced differently across a city. Increasingly, communities are also generating evidence about those experiences. But producing evidence and influencing a decision are two very different things. Community-generated data, lived experience, and local knowledge can struggle to travel into the places where urban priorities are set, investments are made, research agendas are shaped, and resources are allocated. The challenge is therefore not simply how to gather better evidence. It is how to build a pathway from what communities know to what cities actually do. This workshop will examine that missing link. Drawing on UrbanBetter’s experience across 13 cities, including examples from Lagos and Nairobi, participants will explore how community experience and data can make urban risks visible and contribute to healthier, more equitable, and climate-resilient cities. The session will also examine where those pathways break down: what happens when evidence reaches the wrong people, arrives at the wrong moment, lacks institutional legitimacy, or is disconnected from the resources and relationships needed to act on it? UrbanBetter’s Annual Impact Report will provide an evidence base for the conversation, but this is not a report presentation. Its findings will instead be used to interrogate a broader question: what would need to change for locally generated evidence to carry greater weight in urban decision-making? What to expect A 90-minute working session moving from evidence to exchange to action. Short provocations and perspectives from across UrbanBetter’s ecosystem will ground the conversation in real experience before participants turn to facilitated reflection and peer exchange. Participants will be encouraged to bring their own experience into the room. What does UrbanBetter’s evidence affirm or challenge in your work? Where is community knowledge getting stuck? Who needs to hear it? What relationships, research, funding, platforms, or institutional changes could help it travel further? The session will close with participants identifying a practical next step: a live city challenge that could be brought into the UrbanBetter ecosystem, a connection that should continue, or expertise and resources that could help move community evidence toward action.Joining the conversation will be: -Matey Richard, CEO of Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO) and our Accra Cityzens Hub partner; -Professor Peter Elias of UNILAG CHSD and an UrbanBetter Academy partner;-Katherine Clements of Unorthodox Philanthropy, our funding partner;-Lina Torres of Movilizatorio and our Bogota Cityzens Hub Partner. Who this is for This workshop is for city leaders and decision-makers, climate and public health practitioners, researchers, funders, youth and community leaders, and organizations working toward healthier, more equitable, and climate-resilient cities, particularly those interested in closing the gap between community knowledge and institutional decision-making. What you will get out of it Real examples of how community-generated evidence is being used in cities including Lagos and Nairobi A clearer understanding of why locally generated evidence does, or does not, influence urban decisions Perspectives from people who generate evidence, make decisions, fund change, and experience urban systems Practical ideas for connecting community knowledge with research, leadership, funding, and institutional action A potential next step, partnership, or live city challenge to carry forward beyond Climate Week Hosted by UrbanBetter