The fourth African Urban Research Initiative Meeting was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on the 28-30 June 2015. Africa Urban Research initiative (AURI) is a network composed of 12 urban research centres across the African continent established in 2013. AURI supports existing and future Africa based research centres to improve the capacity of individual centres to undertake collaborative urban research and to engage with key decision---makers to proactively address Africa’s urban transition. The meeting was supported by the Ford Foundation, as part of a one-year work programme aimed at consolidating the network and refining collective thinking on key issues that will ultimately inform the forthcoming AURI publications for dissemination at the 2015 Africities conference and Habitat III in 2016. In attendance from the University of Nairobi was Prof Peter M. Ngau (CURI) and Prof Winnie Mitullah (IDS).