The Viability Fund for Cities is a new catalytic financing mechanism spearheaded by Viable Cities, to scale transformative climate action in cities worldwide. The fund blends public funding, private capital and donor contributions, to de-risk investments through pilots and system demonstrators, enabling large-scale groundbreaking climate action in cities all over the world.

 According to the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance, cities need more than USD 4 trillion annually through 2030 for climate mitigation alone. Urban financing gaps also extend to resilience, affordable housing and many other important issues. At the same time, hundreds of organizations and initiatives run finance programs that could be directed towards cities.

With the Viability Fund for Cities, the world’s leading financial institutions as well as local, regional and national governments, are invited to align on programs and to jointly develop new mechanisms for urban finance. 

The first step in program alignment is the development of a System Demonstrator Grant Call. From January to March 2026, funders are invited to join the co-design of the call, drawing on experiences from system demonstrators in Europe, Latin America, and Africa. The aim is to create a shared framework that funders can adapt and apply in their own contexts to support future system demonstrator initiatives. The first phase will prioritise Brazil, California, India, Ukraine, Sweden and selected global programmes. The goal is to create a shared practical framework that funders can adapt and apply in their own contexts to support system demonstrator initiatives, but which at the same time allows for joint learning, implementation, and demand side aggregation.

Beyond aligning programs, the initiative also aims to invite funders to co-finance new, high-potential initiatives with strong business cases and engagement from cities worldwide. Starting now, several opportunities exist to co-invest alongside the many actors, including in the scaling of EnergyNet – a new protocol for local energy distribution developed by ViaEuropa within the City of Lund’s system demonstrator. 

In 2026, new alignment and investment opportunities within affordable housing, sustainable materials and urban mobility will also be explored through an advisory group. 

Once fully up and running, the Viability Fund for Cities will work with system demonstrators as a mechanism of de-risking investments and procurement in cities, and to provide the finance to accelerate the full scaling of climate action in cities.