This session was hosted by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management of The Netherlands.
From March 19-20, 2024, more than 1,000 transport and finance experts gathered at World Bank Headquarters in Washington, DC—alongside 1,800 more who gathered online—for the 21st edition of Transforming Transportation to explore how to mobilize resources for sustainable transportation. Co-hosted by the World Bank and WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, the two-day conference explored strategies that cities, countries and investors must pursue to simultaneously close the climate finance gap and develop safer, greener, more accessible and more climate resilient transport systems. Learn more at https://www.transformingtransportation.org/.
Today which was not expected uh but we’ll manage anyway and we have a very nice uh scene today with three different speeches in the beginning and two different panels and this is all in one hour so we’re going to be quick and fast and I would love to say there’s a lot of
Space for interaction but unfortunately there’s not um so please stick around afterwards or feel free of course to reach out later on um this is my first practical invitation to leave your business card if you want to stay updated on this topic on the topic of active Mobility on the program of active
Or just want to be in touch uh feel free to to have hand out your business card um to me or one of my colleagues here in the room as well here on the side because it’s a full program we have today um just to to start with um I
Think we all agree that there’s a lack of active Mobility worldwide uh and we all know it um we’re not going to solve this problem within this hour today unfortunately but what we can do is try to make sure we’re on the same page because there’s happening quite a lot
Worldwide the topic of active Mobility um is one that we’re all believing in and we’re trying to get it on on the higher on the agenda with all the different organizations we work for and I dare to say here at this stage I was expecting a stage in this room today we
Have a key decision makers with us today we are able to make a difference and many thanks to especially the World Bank and wri for organizing this conference and addressing the topic of walk and cycling so thank you so much for that we’re going to start right away um
With the two opening Keynotes first of all our excellent speaker Mr Case vber Vice minister of infrastructure and water management at the Dutch Ministry of infrastructure from the Netherlands um feel free to stand up but also feel free to stay seated whatever you prefer as a speaker or a panelist um so give
Him a warm welcome thank you thank you ladies and gentlemen friends I would like to start by Thanking us to discuss important issues and um and despite we are sitting down I think it will be an active session we share ladies and gentlemen a common Vision to unlock unlock the full
Potential of active Mobility on the global scale more and more countries and organizations are seeing the benefits of both cycling and walking and are willing to integrate active mobility in national and local mobile Mobility policy and we believe that it’s a key solution improving accessibility Health climate and livability within and between
Cities last December at the cop 28 in Dubai the active program was launched the program has been set up to create a front runner group of countries and organizations to collectively promote active Mobility on an international stage by working together to stimulate capacity building worldwide and creating access to
Investments and active Mobility through the active Mobility fund the objectives of active are to support the training of 10,000 active Mobility experts within 10 years and to successfully launch a dedicated active Mobility fund at phow city in June in to increase International investments in this area until now the cost associated with
Workshops have been covered by the Netherlands and the expenditure uh to expedite the program and ensure a sustained impact on those cities who need it now and continue to need it additional funding from other countries should secure the continuity of the program and we are happy with the agreements between Belgium and
Luxembourg to co- Finance active together hopefully many other countries will follow from 2025 on and yes this is an open invitation investments in walking and cycling can drive the necessary change to meet the climate goals as well as to contribute to healthy livable and Equitable cities but nonetheless as you
Know the total investment by International and National stakeholders do not reflect the growing demand and the need at the local level and that’s why we are working towards a dedicated fund for active Mobility the active Mobility fund for cycling walking and bodies a collaborative afford to empower Nations regions and cities in fostering
Sustainable Mobility Solutions through strategic partnership and a focus a focus on human capacity building the fund aims to promote the implementation of cycling walking policies and infrastructure in lower middle income countries and thereby create lasting impact on active Mobility initiatives worldwide the Netherlands Belgium and Luxembourg are currently working
Together with a wide range of important Partners amongst others the V the World Bank unep the world health organizations D UNESCO to scale up efforts in capacity building and international financing for walking and cycling and we hope to bring together more partners and countries to promote the implementation of dedicated cycling
Policies and cycling infrastructure ladies and gentlemen to finish I would like to thank the speakers in today’s session for sharing their knowledge and their available insights with us today it captures the spirit of what active is an open interactive program which we are building together with all of us and
Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas with us during the panel today or otherwise after the session our active team is here for this purpose and this will not only make our program stronger after all I’m very much looking forward for a fruitful discussion during the session and the
Rest of the conference thank you very [Applause] much thank you so much case for this nice warm welcome I think the room is filling up so there’s some chairs here up front so feel free if you want to sit down to come up front also here on the
Side please don’t hesitate it is an active session though so we’re gonna stand up in between but maybe an hour is a bit too long thank you again case let’s continue with the next speaker Miss Nicholas spj from World Bank it’s up to you if you stand up or sit down
What do you have you prefer well thank you thank you very much M let me start by saying it’s uh it’s really a pleasure to be part of such a a distinguished audience to uh to talk about active Mobility uh which is a topic that uh has been there for a long
Time has grown in momentum during covid where we saw the sales of bicycles going to the roof and their cost actually uh uh but what we’ve learned I mean through uh the past the past years is that this is not uh something that is consy to the transport agenda it can be
Really something very powerful and a great complement to U uh to the the whole uh transport agenda and sustainable transport agenda now um at the World Bank uh as you know we are the development organization so we we Finance uh uh transport programs all over the world uh this is depending on
The uh uh the requests that we receive from from countries from the from the global South um Urban transport is a big part of that work because the world is urbanizing uh and each time we receive these request uh what we’re trying to to assess is how do we maximize the the
Development benefit you know the our mission um is uh to end poverty on a livable planet uh and so those words are important every single one of those words are important and when we receive a a request to uh to develop uh to finance uh transport programs I mean we
Try to assess a little bit what’s the how we maximize the the impact uh on the the development benefits and uh on the sustainability know uh and when we started to receive a request from active Mobility programs uh what we discovered is that uh this made perfect economic sense no
One that’s U uh through the various prioritization lances that we apply to our development programs whether it’s uh economic benefits Financial sustainability whether it’s health benefits uh um the active Mobility is actually the right the right thing to do it’s uh and we recently completed a uh
Some um research with our partner from ITP and I want to to say hi to to Heather because we’ve worked hand in hand uh on on this and the research that we released at the at the last C uh we looked at five cities around the world that have been particularly championing
This this agenda those are Adis ABA buenos Dar Salam chamin and Lima uh and the the results was overwhelming know the um the the cost benefit That You observe in these kind of programs uh is um among some of the best investments that you can find in the in the transport
Sector 53% internal rate of of return in chanin 32% in Dar uh8 $80 million annual savings u in bota 30 milon in guo uh so the the evidence is there to show that this makes economic sense now uh this makes economic sense because of Mobility performance be before because of
Complementarities with other transport modes and there is also unle evidence that um this active Mobility is a way to increase the ridership of public transportation programs um and ample evidence that uh this is also a very cost cost effective way to reduce uh GG emissions so it’s it’s obviously a zero emission
Mobility mode uh but it’s also a very cost-effective way to uh to reduce uh emissions um finally um when we look at U those programs they are not only cost effective um clean they are also inclusive because um I don’t know many of you were probably in the session this
Morning uh the opening session for TT where Claudia Lopez the former mayor of bota made this very powerful statement about um uh woman Mobility needs which are different than men uh and predominantly we know that women children walk and and bike use non motorized mode of Transport in the in
The global South and so when we uh invest in active Mobility there is also a way to promote a more inclusive Mobility you know so you kind of K three birds with one St one stone um so that’s I think the what I would like to to say a little bit in in
Introduction uh and just to say that uh together with itdp we are working to um together on the next phase of uh of This research where we um we want to lower the transaction cost uh for all those teams that are working on active Mobility Program so that they don’t
Start from scratch know they have some modeling instruments that are out there that can evaluate the benefit um uh of active Mobility programs uh so that they can design and Implement those programs uh faster uh it’s it’s a very simple way to standardize the methodology and uh
And allow to to go to scale which is what we want thank you so much excellent I think some Applause is there right thank you so much Miss P I think indeed I also saw the research compliments on that as well for you had um and I think in it’s really a must
Read for this whole room so uh if you haven’t read it please do so um thank you so much I think we continue right away with the next speaker may I invite from wri M thank you very much um I think a lot have been has been said about active
Mobility but not enough Never Enough right if you look at um The Brick is the you know the Cornerstone of the house public spaces and streets are that this is where you can of make cities from the problem is that in the many cities that we work as W you see that there’s
Actually that’s unta potential it’s unsafe it’s not accessible but it offers a huge opportunity as you said to decarbonize because it’s already carbonized but it also helps to reduce you know um health issues reduce air quality air pollution I mean and urban congestion I think in the last um think
The last few years this idea of a 15minute city um really became trending in terms of how do you create environments that are based proximity and where everybody had access to Urban services and um active Mobility is a key to that but it needs to be safe you know
Um and it needs to be access for Access accessible for everyone um we have a couple of very good examples of where we work with W because we are a research organization but the Ross Center for cities has a lot of teams Ong ground so 75% of our people work with cities to
Figure out the difficult stuff and you can’t imagine well some people here they work in cities in the global South but opening up a stretch of bicycle lane in a city of BU Iris or a city of Mangalore is Hell on Earth hell on Earth it’s you enter in a very
Aggressive and complex situation when you’re doing that and you just can’t simply can’t believe it’s especially not me coming from the Netherlands last 15 years I’ve been working in the global South but the amount of regression that you see when you as an organization together with Partners Implement you know active
Mobility infrastructure is simply stunning so that needs to change and it needs to change and therefore we need to have showcases you know we don’t need only have to implement kind of policies and show and argue why it’s good but really and I think Claudia today also
Said it right or I think yesterday in our in our discussion the best way to learn is to do it right and to Showcase um we’ve been involved in a few things and I just mention a few examples in benirus in Argentina where we have been
Um in where we made 70 kilometers of bike Lanes on major Avenues and that proved that the infrastructure that you make creates the demand you know it automatically creates demand so we counted that actually on two corridors in way Iris we saw increased increased bicycle usage by increasing by 130% one Avenue
146% um on another Avenue um but we also saw for example increased ridership by women you know that increase 54% so once more when you make it and you showcase it and you open it it’s going to be used I think um another example where we’ve been involved in is in Turkey
Where we actually led a campaign to make cycling much more kind of prominent as a commuting mode of Transport um and that needs quite a bit of work because there’s a stigma in active Mobility as we all know biking and walking is for the poor you know once you make it you
Don’t do it so you need to change it so we need that we developed a campaign where we really work with civil society and an active role of them also in helping to shape policies and contribute to that campaign um and then another example that I want to mention is popup bike
Lanes in in Bangalore CO as we seen in many cities have kind of really started a a movement of opening up overnight active Mobility options bicycling lanes and and and pedestrian Lanes um in Bangalore we’ve been um instrumental and collaborating on a popop 70 kilometer Lane that then actually paves the way
For more permanent infrastructure um uh in cycling infrastructure in Bangalore so this combination of opening up you know setting the example looking what it actually what Ty of effect it has on on on on on the ridership and the campaign in order to kind of get rid of that
Stigma on on on active Mobility is some of the things that we are involved in and that I’m very eager to see more of thank you so much I couldn’t agree more with that so I’m not anything going to to add with that um the only thing is indeed that
I’ve heard several times that actually the pandemic helped us and that’s also in this that sense of course a good thing with all this popup infrastructure we’ve seen worldwide more infrastructure cycling infrastructure um some has been removed but overall most infrastructure has stayed uh in in so many cities thank
You so much for your contribution um it’s popped to my mind that we can make this session a little bit more interactive because I see when I look around in the room I see so many familiar faces but also so much knowledge um so we do have some sticky
Notes maybe T if you want to help me to explore them so if you have any ideas or any thoughts or even feelings or just want to leave your email address feel free to do so so we’re GNA collect them if smart feel free to rip them apart um
Please note it down and we want to take that into account or if you just want simply stay in touch because this is I hope this will be inspiring for all of you but you also have so much knowledge to share um I could have made the list
For this session endless with more than 20 persons but then we are here the whole day so feel free to leave your ideas and and and thoughts um because then we go to the first panel um I’m looking a little bit to the left as well because the panelists are are here um
And if there’s a burning questions from the room feel free if there’s anything else feel free to interrupt we don’t have much time I’m going to say so in one sentence please but if you do have a burning question feel free to raise your hands we’re going to make time for it we
Also have an audience at home uh I wanted to to stress that as well so it’s this room is already quite packed which is great to see but also worldwide is being streamed even more people listening um so maybe that’s good to know thank you again it’s all male panel
This this day but we in the panel we have some ladies here luckily um but it’s it’s quite equal in in this sense um I think um for the panelist Maybe it’s nice to introduce yourself briefly um if that’s okay in one or two sentences um May I start with
You Philip I’m pH bu Secretary General of the Department of mobility and Public Works in the Flemish region which is a part of Belgium thank you so much hello good afternoon dyen I am representing the German Federal Ministry for cooperation and development and I’m um the focal point for for Mob a sustainable
Mobility and I’m Heather Thompson I’m the CEO of ITP The Institute for transportation and development policy and we are an international nonprofit organization headquartered in New York but with offices all over the world um active at the city state National and international levels with nearly 40
Years of History so happy to be with you all good after afternoon to all of you my name is Shiri Babu maharan I’m the mayor of lit Metropolitan City and the katundu valley does have uh two Metro cities one is Katmandu the capital city of Nepal and next is litur so I’m very
Glad to be here uh with all of you thank you thank you so much so on this side as well panelist of course I’m sorry I have to look around in that sense um if it’s okay I start with you Philip but fanders Belgium um close for us but quite far
Away from where we are right now um just out of curiosity fanders has also model split on cycling maybe briefly how did you achieve that well first of all I I want to uh to stress what RI said it asks for Change and change is difficult because everybody wants change nobody wants to
Change and that’s that’s a big problem you need some courage to take some measures and when those measures are taken you can grow and what did we do first of all we invested in infrastructure we come from a period 10 years ago where yearly we invested an
Amount of 100 million euros in bicycle paths today this has augmented to 380 million a year so that’s 380 million euros a year for cycling infrastructure and there’s the the adum of when they when you build it they will come and we have seen them coming but we had a kind
Of luck also pandemic which you mentioned was was part of our look but also the electrical Mobility the electrical bikes made it possible to go further with the same amount of um with the same uh pain to do it I know it’s a wrong word I’m sorry but I was I was
Looking in my head couldn’t find it and that’s there of course that that Financial commitment that was very important of our government to do it and to to make to make us able to build it next to that there’s of course education and awareness if you want people to
Change you have to show them how to change you have to show them what what the benefits are the the inclusion the healthy the healthy aspects uh even the safety aspects when you build new infrastructure safety is rising and this makes it possible to use use this
Infrastructure next to that of course we also uh build and share knowledge and we we uh we have now since since a few weeks a few months we even have a cycling professor at the Gant University who is appointed to uh to educate to educate students in architecture in
Planning on cycling and on aspects of cycling in their in their profession and then of course yeah integrated Regional planning is is needed and an ambitious vision for 2040 which we have formulated on cycling and next the to to end it all of course data uh when you build things
When you want to know what’s happening you have to monitor this you have to to to collect those data learn from it and take new measures try new things that’s the whole the whole set of of measures of things we did around cycling and where we saw that the only model split
Over 20 years that really changed was the cycling one we have more cyclists than ever in FLA although we are known as a cycling country all over the years but mostly in the in the sports business and I see case laughing because he knows
That the tour to France we w we won 19 of them have some good some good sport cyclist but then the Netherlands do also and then next to that yeah active Mobility isn’t all about cycling of course it’s also about pedestrians and there you really need courage to take
Decisions we saw in the in the 990s gent was the first one in Belgium uh where the the local uh the local people decided on creating a pedestrian Zone they got a lot of opposition a lot of opposition so he took courage to take the decision and what we see today is
That in most cities in Belgium there are pedestrian zones why because the data showed that there weren’t less customers no there were more customers than before and the livability was was rising and that’s what active Mobility is all about this is not about transport not only about Mobility it’s about livability in
Our streets it’s about surroundings where we come outside and where we where it’s where it’s nice to live where we want to be that’s active Mobility I I’ll I’ll stop there thank you so much that was quite an inspiring contribution um and I know flers is is going to be the cycling
Country uh in the coming years um so it’s it’s pleasure to cycle there as well I know personally let’s continue to uh Germany if I may say so um for me uh we worked with Germany uh a lot in the global South especially through the gis
As well can you eliberate a little bit first of all um how in Germany as well the model split has been rising quite a lot briefly but also in the global South how through giz you’re working in global South and you’re actually doing great so
Love to hear a bit more from you on that thank you yes um the model split has been changing in Germany I must say it is changing far too slowly um but at least um being quite urbanized country it it has been a a cities phenomenon so
People in cities cycle uh because it’s faster um because it is um cheaper um because we have been implementing infrastructure so yes if there is safe infrastructure people cycle um and we wanted to take this momentum of um livable cities also to our Development Corporation which is why through the transformative Urban
Mobility initiative we have been trying to to actually address um Urban Mobility from a systems perspective and a a a liveable cities um but also a um let’s say human centered approach so we want to put Urban Development before Mobility planning um because people do walk we heard this
This morning that regardless of conditions in the cities in the global South 75% of women walk they do so out of necessity and they should do so safely and they should do so also because that’s how actually you get to live in your city you get to create a
Neighborhood if you can meet your neighbor on the street because it’s safe because it has um economic opportunities um and we know that with a bicycle the distance you can cover almost triples with ebikes uh it is more than that so if we want to have inclusive cities we
Cannot only put in huge backbone Transport Systems we cannot only work within transport sector uh we also need to create help create an infrastructure that actually helps people displ themselves safely between the noes of all on those systems um and if all goes well if it goes
Perfectly well um most Services would be accessible within 15 minutes 20 minutes from any point of the city you live in either walking or cycling or by public transport because that’s how and that is our long-term aim we can decarbonize um Urban Mobility um It Is by reducing the
Necessity to to to to use a car or use a motorcycle because the city is a safe place for everybody to walk to cycle or to hop on a bus or use the Metro whatever is there thank you so much D it’s very uh informative as well I see uh one
Practical note more people entering the room we do have some seats here up front so feel free to walk around and and take a seat um so more people can can join uh and again it’s great to see so many of you in this room uh we should have some
More sessions on active Mobility right okay thank you so much take a seat um I think if we continue uh with with the first panelist I go to my right here um and and I wanted to start uh with you miss Bel uh on we already shared
Something on that you get quite some requests from worldwide from Global South countries and I can imagine that there’s a lot of requests probably to your organization um how do you prioritize or would you say well more requests should come or what’s your perspective on that
So I I said a few words about that uh I think in my introduction but um we only try to maximize the development benefits so and and again I the um it’s not difficult to uh to understand why active Mobility makes sense so it’s uh uh it’s
Good economics it’s uh it’s good for air quality it’s good for health um it’s good for ridership of public transportation it’s good for climate uh it takes a lot of boxes no and one additional thing that it does is that uh it can even help to improve
Um uh last M Logistics in cities you know you you see more and more cities where you have a bikes that are not only uh used to deliver uh to carry people but also uh to carry Goods no uh we did some research on that showing that it
Also makes quite a lot of uh of so so the these programs are not very difficult to prioritize perhaps one difficulty that uh there is some time is the fact that they can be fairly small comparison in comparison to other development programs uh you know big development Partners but also this is
True for carbon markets and and green Finance instruments uh they are looking for something big no one so if you come to them U with a pilot of uh of 10 kilm of bike Lanes I mean that’s not going to hit the threshold uh and the transaction
Cost is going to be too high you know so that’s why I I think we we should not hesitate to go big on those programs um when these are associated with mass transit investment like brt like Metro uh like an urban rail that’s fairly easy you know it in comparation to the
IIA mentioned it I think this morning now for one mile of one kilometer of Metro how many kilometers of bik lanes can you can you build no so we should always think about when we engage on a on large scale Urban transport program is do not forget active Mobility because
This this can be the more than the Sherry of the of the cake no it can it can bring all these good results at a fair limited uh cost now but we need to go big we need to go to uh to scale if we want to um um to avoid this
Transaction cost that there is in uh in uh in processing large scale development programs that’s what we try to do at the at the World Bank we uh we try to train our our transport professionals so they all of them know that they have active mobility in the toolbox uh we try to
Promote the ex change of experience we we built a specific community of practice of all the transport professionals who are uh are interested in this in this topic uh and in addition to associating active Mobility programs to ma m Transit Investments there are a lot of synergies also with Urban Development
Because Building B Lanes can be an opportunity to rethink completely a city uh and we see mayors that are actually have bold bold Vision in uh in developing uh bota is is is a a good example of that to uh to go big on active Mobility really because they want
To rethink their City to make it Greener uh more liveable and more more accessible so uh and that I think is going to um to lead to the emergence of a new generation of active Mobility programs that are is a bit separate from um the mass transit investment um where
Active Mobility is at the heart at the core of the uh of the development objective Lima is a good example of that in the Lima is really a bold Vision where um they they thought what they could do in terms of traffic management to free public space for for bike lanes
And now they have this huge programs about building 400 kilom additional bike Lanes we see additional cities that are interested in embarking on on this thank you very much very interesting to hear and I think we can can listen to you much longer um um continuing to to to your neighbor here
Wri um you already stressed the importance of active mobility and I think your organization is already being so active on this topic uh I’d like to thank you for that as well um that’s really helped and I think of course we can do so much more U and when we are
Talking on on financing for ex Mobility which is this whole conference uh about how to finance more sustainable Mobility um what what’s your opinion on how to perhaps a new active Mobility fund or how to how are we going to achieve that and I know it’s quite a tough question
But maybe you can uh give your perspective on that for us I just said to Nicholas because we are the World Bank and partnering now for 21 years in transforming transportation that the next 10 years can be about financing the right infrastructure right so let’s not
Do that but I think uh I mean one conference is not sufficient to to cover the complexity because we know you know there’s sufficient resources but how do you make it flow and I think in terms of before I get to what targeted active Mobility fund could look like I
Mentioned I I was very I mentioned very particular examples of our work in cities and how tough it is to get it done right so and I think two things need to happen and one is to structurally build active mobility in the actual funding and financing of
Multilaterals um I I dotted down some some notes here that the the outer Ring Road I lived in Nairobi for almost seven years and I know some people here in the audience are living in Nairobi too but the outer Ring Road which is an investment of $120 million done by the
African Development Bank is the deadliest Road in in in East Africa so it reported 44 deaths in 2021 and 58 in 2021 so you invest in a completely unsafe piece of infrastructure right so how do we build in active mobility and road safety structurally in the investments in in road infrastructure
That is one I mean you can think about all sorts of nice funds that Target active Mobility but without that we’re not making a de then the second is that we see working in in in in so many cities um every year and especially we developed a
An approach where we work together hand inand for the longer time with with 30 to 40 cities which we call these Deep dive cities we see there is an appetite to demonstrate to the population what active modality actually is right and for those targeted questions it’s very
Difficult to kind of you know knock on the door of the World Bank can we help you know it is very difficult because it’s a different you know it’s a different envelope we’re not talking about 120 million dollar ringroad right we we talking about a stretch of 10 20
30 kilometers of cycle lanes for example and um and we think and this is what we’re currently discussing with the partners in with countries that that a targeted active Mobility fund can help these cities to answer the requests of these cities to demonstrate the benefits of active Mobil
And better doing than talking right so in this active Mobility fund we can imagine that this would be a fund that addresses the cycling and The Pedestrian walkways and that it you know that 20 to 30 cities maybe can you know request for targeted investment in in active
Mobility um we have done more of these things in other sectors so for example in sou Africa we’ve developed a water fund that is looking at resilience and water investments that are too small for multilaterals but are highly impactful right so this a kind of a mid missing
Middle in the financing that you need for water sensitive projects for bicycle and pedestrian projects in cities um but also another example we developed this Terra fund which is actually a con to fund and finance land restoration um in 27 counties in in Africa so we see a
Huge opportunity to work with the partners and financing institutions to see what would a targeted um uh uh active Mobility fund look like um and together with with some kind of championing countries I think this can be a real great solution and a championing mechanism for cities and
That answers to the demand and the needs of many cities thank you very much um interesting information I hope if you have questions again uh we don’t have much time but if you can do it in one sentence feel free um and note down on the postes if you have
Ideas or feelings again feel free to do so I’d like to shift to panel number two we do have two panelists but I can complete uh and be a bit flexible in that sense but before we do that it’s an active session so please stand up feel
Free to really uh stand up stretch a little bit so have a little bit more energy thank you showing a good example of course just to stress a little bit we’re sitting too much in this world I think you may stretch your arms don’t worry you can do
That okay thank you so much feel free to sit down again or or keep standing of course it is true actually right there was Richard we’re sitting too much in this world and I think our jobs are a perfect example of that um although this conference helps you to keep walking a
Little bit from room to room um it helped to helps to energize a little bit on the last uh 50 minutes we’re gonna we’re going to have today um I think first of all to stress indeed the the financing uh as as my neighbor just also mentioned to me um I think
It’s so important that countries like the Netherlands Belgium Germany we also have an obligation to uh uh think a bit further on active Mobility uh personally I’m from the Netherlands and and we grow up with cycling uh but in so many Global South countries there’s also quite a
Cycling culture um and I think we shouldn’t underestimate the fact that um there’s already so much been done and knowledge shared and that there’s there’s happening a lot uh we cannot even oversee everything what is happening in the world and H if I may start with you uh already mentioned that
The research you did together with the World Bank I think it’s a perfect example on why you should uh invest in active mobility and I think we all agree in this room that that’s a good idea but maybe for those who who don’t know the research can you elaborate briefly on on
The on the results because I think it’s it’s quite an accomplishment she did there sure and Nicola already provided um some of the some of the takeaways but um maybe just to take a step back um you know it’s been mentioned already that in the pandemic we saw so much more
Interest in active mobility and so we wanted to take advantage of that at ITP we had many of the cities where we work again I I mentioned earlier um of course we’re in the business of supporting sustainable and Equitable transportation and we do work at all levels including
At the national and international level but a lot of work in in cities and so we had many of the cities that we were working in you know building these popup Lanes having much more interest in active mobility and coming to us asking for more support um and this was not new
But we just saw that it was increasing during the time of the pandemic and so we decided to launch a campaign which is our cycling cities campaign we launched it during cop 27 as Transportation was on the agenda at the cop for the first time and so much of the attention was on
Electric vehicles which we were of course very excited about but we thought that there was you know a lot of attention should be going to active Mobility as well so we launched our cycling cities campaign with the goal of having 25 cities from the global South we hear about examples from the
Netherlands from Germany from um uh from um Copenhagen from Denmark um you know from Europe all the time but we don’t hear what the great cities are doing in the global South so our goal was to have 25 cities join the campaign we’re now 34 35 cities and growing um with the goal
Of getting 25 million more people located near protected bike Lanes so it’s also been mentioned it’s no secret that if you want to get people on bicycles you need protected bike claims it’s been proven over and over again um paint on the ground might work in some
Places but in most places it doesn’t work you need actually um designated Lanes so that was our goal um and so going forward uh you know talking to all of these cities that had plans had desires one of the big issues of course which is why we’re all here is
The lack of finance and so you know a lot of these places are dependent in one way or another from borrowing often um from multilateral development Banks so this brings us to the study which is you know we really wanted to look at examples where bilateral multilateral Development Bank
Financing has led to successful investments in active Mobility walking and cycling and just because we had the data available we chose to look at um cycling Lanes so Nicola I already talked about um the five case studies that we looked at again buenos Iris tianen Lima
Addis Ababa and Dar Salam which all have a combination of usually some level of national and City level financing along with develop vment Bank financing I mean one thing that we saw sadly is there isn’t enough cases actually of multilateral and Development Bank financing we need a lot more of it and
As Nicholas said when we do have those examples it’s clear that there is a return on investment you know 53% 35% and that’s just Avail based on available data you know it’s it’s hard to Crunch these numbers um but we know that the return on the investment is huge and
It’s everything from the health benefits climate benefits traffic alleviation Network effects and public uh transport ridership um so maybe just a couple of takeaways um you know one of the big things is really looking for a point of entry for finance um Tenn genen was one of the case studies we’re really excited
To be able to S celebrate the sustainable transport award that was given to changen for all of their investment in walking and cycling connected to getting people on public transportation and that’s really the systems approach that we want we want more ridership on public transportation it’s good for people it’s good for
Cities it’s good for climate and it’s good for finance if you’re financing Metro or Rail and you don’t have people riding it it’s not going to be a good investment so you need to have access and I think that’s one of the biggest takeaways the other is traffic
Alleviation the Lima project has been uh um talked about you know really looking at how all of these Investments work together to make it better for the cities but also better for the finance we have to work on these things um together so um again really excited to
To um celebrate the example of Tangen it’s clear that there’s the pipeline of interest and we need to take this more systemic approach um and yeah we’re glad that this study provided a number of case studies to make that point um and then the next step as we um as
Nicola mentioned is developing a return on investment tool so that each time there’s a city interested in these Investments we’re not starting from scratch to try and make that case but we really have a userfriendly tool to do that but we also need more commitment from the banks that this is something
That they really want to do um and that it’s becomes you know normal business just like we see Metro and we’re finally see see with bus Rapid Transit which at ITP we’ve been working on for decades but um walking and cycling um we shouldn’t be building projects without
That again good for people good for business thank you so much um very interesting to hear and again if you haven’t read read the research please do so it’s very informative and indeed I think also the way of how we should continue and proceed so well done again
And thank you for being here um if I if I may uh go to your neighbor um unfortunately um from Ababa this Ababa we want to dive in but unfortunately Mr Asar is not able to join the panel today so I Contin if it’s okay with you as
Well with Miss Mar Maran mayor from lur sorry I had to practice that lur and um I’m very curious we we have heard quite some information already uh on this panel and uh from different side of the world I’m very interesting and I think the audien is as well uh to your
Perspective on all of this on active mobility in that sense but especially also on the financing site uh we’d love to hear a bit more from you thank you for the question uh first of all I just want to take you uh to little bit uh further
Like uh the katundu valley uh had very good cycle culture up until say mid 80s uh thereafter the two heer motor bikes just over took it because uh those motor bikes uh are uh easily accessible now with did not have a local election for 18 years from
2017 during that time I mean uh the cycle culture has gone back to worse and then the local election took place in May uh 2017 and then I owned the uh lolur Metropolitan city mayor then I’m a cycle lover I have a very old uh bicycle which is almost 45 years old
And still good and uh I used to take it to have a round of the of my city but the problem is uh there was nothing as I heard lot of lot of good things on cycle culture done by uh other panelist but uh we didn’t have anything the new constitution
Promulgated uh some eight years before does not recognize bicycle that is one of the biggest challenges however once I once I am elected as the Metro mayor I started constructing bicycle lanes and this is my second tenure of five years in accordance with the nepes Constitution a mayor can be elected
Twice now mine is almost going to finish very soon so having said this there are lot of things to be done uh regarding bicycle uh culture to be reestablished so during my uh first 10 year uh we constructed UH 60 kilometer of bicycle lens squeezing the international standard
Because our roads are not that white again the the the again it’s a very uh it goes like a serpent so it’s very difficult the roads are in the Heritage city so we must not com we must not compromise the Heritage characteristics so uh we have constructed almost 60 kilomet of bicycle
L but none of those is dedicated however we constructed uh bicycle STS in many places so this is a start of uh bicycle culture in the country but so far we haven’t received any support from either the federal government or provincial government or the international donor agencies like the World Bank ADB Etc
However we are doing our level based Endeavor to uh increase the bicycle L and uh we have the Ring Road out of that of the Ring Road there is 7.9 kilometer length is in my territory so on the board side uh we have already tender for
The dedicated uh cycle land so that will be the first dedicated cycle l in my city so I’m quite of the mtic that something has been done now whatever we have done in my city the other municipalities has have copied and uh they have done very nicely
Just take an example of uh danari nagar palica that that lies in the t t belt so so they did it very nicely better than mine so so this is this is some something that satisfies me but uh we are doing we have to do quite a lot things in this case thank
You thank you so much for these inspiring words um we do have to round up unfortunately uh with this session but I have so many more questions for you so please continue and also of course tomorrow to have this discussion together uh and ask questions and share knowledge in that sense um briefly
Summarizing uh the conclusions in that sense I think we started with as casage mentioned our minister to do this together uh in the global South uh within Europe in the US uh I think we can do much more if we work together in that sense we should maximize the impact I think um
From Miss P also mentioned where’s the most impact we can make and make decisions in that direction uh it’s important to take into account um so thank you for sharing that with us today um I think also what what we’ve heard um from Germany as well uh we need infrastructure safe dedicated
Infrastructure not just paint as as header also mentioned uh with all the respect to the paint it’s a good start but we need safe infrastructure uh dedicated for for cycling and walking because indeed let’s not forget walking it’s active Mobility it’s cycling and it’s walking in the same time especially
In the global South uh so please um we should take it into account I also noted down that that we shouldn’t hesitate to go big on projects um I think that’s also something to take into account we are quite modest I think in the cycling and walking world uh we should should go
Maybe a bit bigger with our projects and with our Ambitions and our our ideas so let’s try and help each other in that direction as well um and I think to conclude let’s continue the conversation as well uh I’d like to mention the ECF fellow City conference in hens in June
This year Belgium um we go by Bike by the way uh but I can imagine of course that’s not for everyone um but but more than happy to to have this this world cycling conference uh and continue the conversation over there uh so more than happy to invite there’s also
Scholarships and sponsorships via the dut cycling Embassy available and I I saw other organizations are also providing sponsorships for that conference uh so again it’s the fellow City Conference in June um this year in Belgium and finally last but not least if you have the poits uh feel free wel
On to collect them as well but also feel free to bring them up front or your business card if you want to stay updated on active mobility in the global South and on the financing of active Mobility thank you so much everyone thank you especially for the panelists
For sharing your ideas and have a great day on this for thank you e e e e e e e for