Situated within the dynamic early 21st century context of urbanization, this partnership conducts research and engages in public education and policy enrichment in seven strategically chosen cities in lower middle-income countries. It aims to advance understanding of how the relationship between poverty and inequality is being transformed, focusing in particular on how this is reconstituting gender relations and women’s right to the city. The partnership is timely given that it was only very recently that the majority of the world’s population began living in urban centres, with urbanization fueled by rapid urban population growth in the urban global south (through natural increase and migration) and largely unrestrained capital mobility and accumulation.