Built for everyday journeys
Everyday Infrastructure is a philanthropic funder based in Lagos. Our mission is to make walking and cycling in Nigerian cities safe and dignified. Most journeys in Nigerian cities begin or end on foot, and more people now cycle for work. Yet footpaths, crossings and cycle lanes are often left out of road designs and budgets. We pay for the evidence, design standards and pilots that change how streets are built, and stay with each piece of work until a public body or company adopts it.
In Nigerian cities, pavements tend to be delivered as part of road projects rather than designed as routes in their own right. Width, surface and kerb height vary between streets and formal crossings are limited, so the experience of walking changes from one block to the next. In Lagos, the documented walkway pilot built by LAMATA with the TUMI programme covers about 500 metres.
Lagos published a non-motorised transport policy in 2018, approved by the governor in 2020 but not yet law, and the Federal Road Safety Corps has expressed support for a national cycling policy. LAMATA nonetheless reports that the city has no dedicated pathways for bicycle riders, and delivery riders who work by bicycle share carriageways with motor traffic.
Access to public transport depends on the walk to and from the stop as much as on the service itself. The Lagos minibus network operates over 2,500 routes, mapped in 2022, with stops that shift over time, and the approaches to formal stations are not consistently designed as part of the route.
Lagos danfo mapping (LUDI and partners), via the MIT Atlas of Popular Transport
Lighting, drainage and signage are provided by different agencies, often to different specifications, so streets in the same city can differ markedly in what they offer. An ICIR investigation reported dark streets in Lagos despite a N4bn lighting programme, and a 2026 study found lighting provision divided between government, private and community actors.
Public squares and parks are limited in Nigerian cities, and existing parks are generally enclosed sites rather than part of the street network. Satellite data for 2025 puts green cover at 14% of the Lagos urban area and tree cover at 2%. In Surulere, 5% of 327 hectares of planned open space is public, against an estimated need of 1,043 hectares for 1.18m residents.
Our agenda starts from the change we want to see in each focus area, set with the agencies, companies and universities that would make it: a safe, lit walk to every bus rapid transit stop, for example, or streetlights with their upkeep in the budget. Behind each change sit the questions to answer and the pilot it should lead to. Students, researchers and entrepreneurs can take up a question from the agenda or propose their own within it.
Grants are made through three funds. Work can move between them: a Student Fund project may form the basis of a Research Fund grant, and the guidance that results may be put into practice through the Pilot Fund. Design guidance is prepared or reviewed by qualified engineers and planners.
Grants for final-year, master’s and PhD fieldwork on a question from the agenda: N200,000 and N400,000 to N500,000 in the first round, rising from 2028 to up to N1m, N5m and N15m against a costed budget, paid directly to the student with a letter from a named supervisor. Calls open through participating university departments, the first in November 2026. Projects of particular promise may receive further funding to continue.
Larger grants for researchers, defined jointly with the organisation that would act on the findings, to develop evidence into design guidance or to evaluate a pilot once it has been built. Opens in 2027.
Recoverable grants for companies whose products or services put design guidance into practice, and first-loss funding that brings lenders and investors into pilots alongside us. Opens as design guidance becomes available.
Alongside our grants, we publish short policy notes drawing on the work we fund, convene the public bodies and companies concerned, and contribute to the drafting of design guidance and standards. Research and methods are published first, and policy notes follow the findings.
Our role is to bring the work to the organisations that can adopt it, to support pilots where they are needed, and to follow each project until its findings are reflected in a code, a procurement requirement or a product. We regard adoption, rather than publication, as the measure of a project's success.
Our first working paper sets out what is known about walking and cycling in Nigerian cities: the share of trips made on foot, how road deaths are recorded, what policy has promised and what has been built. It ends with seven research questions and seven policy actions.
This study examines the routes, waiting points and safety conditions of delivery riders who work by bicycle in two Lagos districts. It combines anonymised trip data from a mobility company with a rider survey and observation at pick-up points, and is intended to inform design guidance for a first protected cycle route. Rider identifiers are hashed before analysis, the level of aggregation is agreed in advance, and raw data is deleted after publication.
Student teams in several cities would audit footpaths, crossings, cycle lanes and street lighting using one method, producing the first comparable record of walking and cycling infrastructure across Nigerian cities.
This project would survey pedestrian volumes and the condition of the approaches to stops along one bus rapid transit corridor, with the aim of informing access guidance for the transport authority.
Research and design work is funded through grants. Where a pilot is expected to generate revenue, support may take the form of a recoverable grant. Where a build requires external finance, our funding can be structured to absorb first losses or to be released on adoption, so that lenders and investors can participate alongside us.
Student grants are paid directly to students, with a supervisor’s endorsement. Larger research programmes are hosted by a local university centre, which manages project funds and supervisor payments. International research partners may contribute methods and peer review, and are credited on the work.
Reports and datasets are published with their methods, and funders are named. Partners are invited to review findings for accuracy before publication, but decisions on publication remain with us.
We welcome enquiries from students, researchers and entrepreneurs working in these areas, from universities interested in hosting a programme, from state governments and agencies with a site or route to pilot, and from companies that build, operate or finance infrastructure.