Being an open and inquisitive researcher means I attend a wide range of SIGs, workshops and seminars. I’m open to lots of new ideas. Recently, I went to a feminist research group where a PhD candidate presented their work. The presentation gave me much to think about – and below is a 100-word worlding I wrote that explains why.
ATR WFU Women Leadership. Source: Worker’s Control
Cooperative Gap-ness
Passionate work to accelerate fair and (just) transitions to climate action using a grassroots union of Western Australian youths. Encouraging and political. Using Feminist Participatory Action Research and Cooperative Inquiry to be more culturally responsive, ethical and inclusive. Emotional labour. Green and ‘sustainable’ as false solutions. Extractivism of volunteers. Research(er)ing through-with-and-as ‘storying’. As insider-researcher-activists, I suggest Sherilyn Lennon’s ‘Unsettling Research’. Nicely messy. Critical cusps of Hope. Anna Tsing says hope can obfuscate activism. Astrida Neimanis and Jen Hamilton question hope, turning instead to desire. Tactical gap-ness. Expectant tool-processes of change and reviving neglected knowledges. Wrangling manageable recuperative action.
The Lab is an activist organisation that has devised inventive forms of creative civil disobedience to assert an alternative to the nexus of capitalism, consumption and environmental destruction.
They try “to open spaces where the imaginative poetic spirit of art meets the courage and rebelliousness inherent to activism”.
In 2009, the Lab developed the Bike Bloc as a form of direct action for the UN Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen (the unsuccessful forerunner to the recent Paris Climate Talks).
Hundreds of people worked over several weeks to design and weld activist bicycles and practise “street action cycle choreography”.
Double Double Trouble – a Dissent Bicycle-Object
Some of these were paired tall-bikes that gave riders a great height advantage (confiscated by police before the protest), while others were equipped with megaphones that played music, sirens and abstract sounds in synchronicity.
One such bike recently featured in Disobedient Objects, an exhibition developed by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London which toured to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.
As the video documentation shows, the Lab embraced the model of an insect swarm in order to create a dispersed field of sound and activity that drew police attention in different directions.
What makes this action so compelling artistically is the intersection of DIY cycle culture and the lessons of radical theatre and performance.
The bicycle was assessed for what kind of form it might contribute to coordinated protest, notably creating a fluid field of assembling and disassembling bodies and sound.
Laura Fisher is a post-doctoral research fellow at Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney. In October 2015 she co-curated Bespoke City with Sabrina Sokalik at UNSW Art & Design, a one night exhibition featuring over 20 practitioners celebrating the bicycle through interactive installations, sculpture, video, design innovation, fashion and craft. This event was part of Veloscape, an ongoing art–research project exploring the emotional and sensory dimensions of cycling in Sydney.
I hope you had a great time out and about on two wheels!
To see photos and stories from how others spent World Bicycle Day 2020 – check out #WorldBicycleDay and #JustRide
People celebrate World Bicycle Day in many ways. Some people do it on bikes, others do it for bikes. It was a delight to see the myriad ways people honoured the humble bike – riding with friends, making art, sharing music, having critical conversations, holding events and all kinds of advocating for more positive bike change.
To acknowledge the uniqueness, longevity and versatility of the bicycle, which has been in use for two centuries, and that it is a simple, affordable, reliable, clean and environmentally fit sustainable means of transportation, fostering environmental stewardship and health
In large part, this is in response to the fact that, internationally, the mobility needs of people who walk and cycle – often the majority of citizens in a city – continue to be overlooked. The UN Share the Road Programme Annual Report 2018, shows that the benefits of investing in pedestrians and cyclists can save lives, help protect the environment and support poverty reduction.
Walking and cycling continues to be a critical part of the mobility solution for helping cities de-couple population growth from increased emissions, and to improve air quality and road safety.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), safe infrastructure for walking and cycling is also a pathway for achieving greater health equity.
For the poorest urban sector, who often cannot afford private vehicles, walking and cycling can provide a form of transport while reducing the risk of heart disease, stroke, certain cancers, diabetes, and even death.
That means bikes are not only healthy, they are also equitable and cost-effective. There are many reasons to love bikes, for example…
Bikes are a simple, reliable, clean and environmentally sustainable means of transportation
Bikes can serve as a tool for development and as a means not just of transportation but also of access to education, health care and sport
The synergy between the bicycle and the user fosters creativity and social engagement and gives the user an immediate awareness of the local environment
The bicycle is a symbol of sustainable transportation and conveys a positive message to foster sustainable consumption and production, and has a positive impact on climate
Cyclists in Tel Aviv, Israel. Photo by Yoav Azi
Internationally, the aim of World Bicycle Day is to:
Encourage specific bicycle development strategies at the international, regional, national and subnational level via policies and programmes
Improve road safety, sustainable mobility, and transport infrastructure planning and design
Improve cycling mobility for broader health outcomes (ie preventing injuries and non-communicable diseases)
Progress use of the bicycle as a means of fostering sustainable development
Strengthening bike and physical education, social inclusion and a culture of peace
Adopt best practices and means to promote the bicycle among all members of society
Regardless of the reason you ride bikes – you are in very good company!
Keep riding, be healthy and have a awesome World Bicycle Day today!
Happy World Bicycle Day 2020 Image: Boldsky
Parts of this content is taken/edited from the UN World Bicycle Day official website.
Rohingya refugee childrens waiting for food at Hakimpara refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar. With children making up around 60 percent of the Rohingya that have fled into Bangladesh, many below 18 years old arrived into the makeshift tents highly traumatized after seeing family members killed and homes set on fire. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: K.M. Asad @kmasad
Regular readers of this blog know that my PhD research explores how bicycles feature in rural African girls’ access to education. This means mobility, education, in/equity, gender justice and children’s rights are central to much of the work I do. They are also reoccurring themes for this blog. I regularly post articles that showcase how bicycles create more positive social, environmental and educational change for all – and in many cases for children specifically.
A few previous
BCC posts that feature bikes and kids are:
This year, I wanted to acknowledge this date in a different way.
Instead of sharing a project where children benefit from bikes, I wanted to highlight the juxtapositions of cultural experiences of children around the world.
In this photograph taken on April 28, 2018, Afghan children work at a coal yard on the outskirts of Jalalabad. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: @noorulah_shirzada
Expand your cultural competency
This week in my Griffith Uni 1205MED Health Challenges for the 21st Century class, we discussed cultural competency and cultural safety. I challenged my students to set themselves a cultural competency experiment/activity for homework – something that they needed to do that would push them outside their own cultural box.
It is too easy for us to think that our experience of life is how it is everywhere.
In Western countries, we are very privileged and sheltered. The experiences of being a child in Australia, the US, Europe, Scandinavia or the UK is vastly different than those in less advantaged countries.
To more broadly consider how culture and environment impact children’s lives differently, look no further than artist Uğur Gallenkuş (@ugrgallen) – his work does this uncompromisingly.
In October 2018, the United Nations warned that 13 million people face starvation in what could be “the worst famine in the world in 100 years. In November 2018, according to the New York Times report, 1.8 million children in Yemen are extremely subject to malnutrition. Image: @ugurgallen.
Global Childhood Juxtapositions: The work of Uğur Gallenkuş.
To honour 2019 World Children’s Day, I’m sharing some of Turkish artist Uğur Gallenkuş work. Uğur is a digital artist who collages images to highlight binaries, juxtapositions and contrasts in human experience. His work comments on conflicts, political issues and social disparities. Some pieces can be quite confronting, others heartfelt, but all have a clear message and are thought-providing.
Uğur’s work forces us to rethink our privilege and remind us that we need to think, feel and act beyond our own immediate cultural experience.
And that many children worldwide need a voice, recognition and help.
A man holds a wounded Syrian baby at a makeshift clinic in the rebel-held town of Douma, on the eastern outskirts of Damascus, on September 26, 2017 following reported air strikes by Syrian government forces. Air strikes killed at least four civilians in a truce zone outside the Syrian capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: Abdullah Hammam @abdullah_hm88 @afpphoto
Nine year old Alladin collects used ammunition to sell as metal in Aleppo, Syria. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: @niclashammarstrom
Volunteers help a refugee man and baby as refugees hoping to cross into Europe, arrive on the shore of Greece‘s Lesbos Island after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey on November, 2015. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: Özge Elif Kızıl @oekizil @anadoluajansi
Yemeni children attend class on the first day of the new academic year in the country’s third-city of Taez on September 3, 2019, at a school that was damaged last year in an air strike during fighting between the Saudi-backed government forces and the Huthi rebels. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: Ahmad Al-Basha @afpphoto
A child fighter with poses with a gun at a military training facility during the Liberian Civil War. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: Patrick Robert @gettyimages
Children of displaced Syrian refugee family use paving stones as pillows at Erbil, Iraq in 2013. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: Emrah Yorulmaz @emrahyorulmaz04 @anadoluajansi
Yelena Shevel, 10, who dreams of becoming a vet, learns to put on a gas mask during training at LIDER, a summer camp in the outskirts of Kiev, Ukraine. She believes that “it is important to defend our homeland because if we don’t do it, then Russia will capture Ukraine and we will become Russia,”. Hundreds of children play war games while they are getting trained in military disciplines and in firing tactics. The armed conflict between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists is entering its fifth year; the conflict is still festering. Time for playing with toys is gone. Education, living in dreams. Schools are destroyed by indiscriminate shelling or deliberately turned into military posts. Children and teachers stay at home, afraid to step on a landmine or be caught in the crossfire of warring parties. The house of learning, envisioned as a safe haven, becomes a target. Image: @ugurgallen. Photo: Diego Ibarra Sanchez @diego.ibarra.sanchez @natgeo
Alexander Csoma de Koros was a Hungarian traveller/explorer who traveled to Tibet in 1820 where he learnt the language and culture.
Csoma ended up being a cross-cultural pioneer for both countries and forged a long-standing language, cultural and learning exchange between the two nations which still endures today.
To commemorate Csoma’s spirit of cultural support and exchange, Hungarian conceptual tech lab Kitchen Budapest has created a low-tech kinetic image projector called Csoma’s Wheel.
Csoma’s Wheel is a bicycle-based installation that uses traditional Tibetan prayer wheel design as the base structure to create an electronic art/image projector.
The LED flashing prayer-wheel is made from
two bicycle wheels, bike and other parts, LEDs and a concrete block. When the
wheel is rotated by hand, the spinning generates enough electricity to power a
strip of LEDs that shine light through a perforated screen or drum. From these
LEDs, a basic animated image is projected onto the concrete block.
The homes and schools are all completely solar-powered.
This NGO uses sustainable local materials
(adobe bricks), revives and utilises traditional construction and handicraft skills,
supports local economic and labour/skill (income-generating) opportunities,
builds more schools and homes and provides solar power.
In
keeping with Alexander’s spirit, there is a strong emphasis on promoting local
heritage and using local Zanglar skills, practices and materials to reduce
reliance on high tech, resource-dependant, imported materials.
The bicycle prayer-wheel projector was installed to complement the recent completion of major construction to Csoma’s Sanctuary, which is visited by many international visitors each year.
This is certainly one of the more unique and innovative ways to use bicycles!
This blog prides itself on sharing the grassroots stories, events and experiences of local and international community cyclists. Around the world, cyclists are grappling with many issues – and this story from JP hit a particular nerve in drawing attention to the issue of air pollution. The article republished here was an open letter written by San Paulo local bicycle activist JP Amaral for Global Call to Climate Action at the end of last year. Recently, I reported on Areli Carreón who is the first ever Latin American Bicycle Mayor (Mexico City) because it is important to hear more from our concerned and proactive Latin American cycling brothers and sisters. A big thanks to JP for sharing his thoughts, research and insights with us. We applaud your work and are sending you much support from down under!
I used to believe poor air quality was a major barrier to cycling in our urban centers and couldn’t understand the reason for my respiratory problems in my hometown São Paulo, where air pollution levels are 60% above the WHO’s safety limits and responsible for 6,421 deaths each year.
However, as I started cycling, the health benefits were immediate, especially for my respiratory system.
Image: The Conversation
Now, after 10 years working on sustainable urban mobility, being co-founder of Bike Anjo, a large national network of volunteers promoting cycling as a means of transport in Brazil, and an active member of the international Bicycle Mayor Network, I understand that the health benefits of cycling and walking outweigh the harm from inhaling air loaded with traffic fumes.
This is a message we always try to get across to the people we help in learning to cycle or tracing their daily routes. Moreover, research studies have shown that car drivers in heavy traffic inhale more pollution.
The biggest metropolitan area in South America (population: 21.2 million), São Paulo is notorious for its traffic; a recent study found that São Paulo inhabitants spent 86 hours on average in 2017 stuck in traffic (or 22% of total drive time), putting it in the top five cities for traffic congestion.
In this city, cars and motorcycles are a much-desired escape from long, arduous journeys on public transport, especially for the poor living on the outskirts who commute every day into the city centre.
Over the past decade, Federal government incentives to the car industry have brought down the price of cars, making them significantly more accessible. It is not surprising then that the main source of air pollution in São Paulo – as in several world cities – is the vehicular fleet, accounting for 80% of total air pollutants.
Despite this unfavourable scenario, cycling has been growing in popularity in recent years: we’ve gone from 100,000 bike trips a day in 2007 to 300,000 trips a day in 2012, and a recent study by the Secretary of Transport estimated over 1 million bike trips a day in São Paulo.
Cycling in Sao Paulo (Brazil). Image: Raw Story
Investments in cycling infrastructure and a series of incentives, such as 400 km of new bike lanes and bike paths, new bike sharing systems and banning car traffic in some of the city’s busiest streets on Sundays have contributed to this culture change. Surfing on this trend, Bike Anjo expanded its network of volunteers, helping “paulistanos” explore safe cycling routes and cycle with more confidence.
This year, our successful Bike to Work campaign has highlighted the health benefits of cycling, focusing on two women who agreed to ride their bikes to work for an entire month for the first time, whilst having their health monitored by doctors.
Having experienced so many physical and mental health benefits from this challenging experiment, they both decided to continue their daily bicycling commutes. We hope that this experience, featured on national television, has encouraged many Brazilians to do the same.
While behaviour change campaigns such as this one can make a difference, a long lasting change in transport culture must be underpinned by robust public policies that are conducive to active mobility. At the federal level, a progressive piece of policy framework was proposed as the “National Urban Mobility Act”, in 2012, putting forward active mobility as the prioritized mode of transport in Brazilian cities.
However, the national plan implementation depends entirely on the formulation of municipal urban mobility plans, which are either non existent or at early stages of implementation in most of Brazil’s municipalities. Through working with civil society actors, Bike Anjo and the Brazilian Cyclists’ Union (UCB) have been trying to assist municipalities in getting their plans off the paper and into action.
The gaps are numerous; from policy design to implementation, from federal to municipal level, and importantly, the tendency of treating issues in silos.
Health policies rarely engage in dialogue with mobility policies, despite existing evidence that reducing air pollution in urban centres through clean, sustainable transport results in better public health outcomes and significant savings in government expenditures.
Air pollution is now responsible for over 7 million premature deaths per year, globally. The urgency of reducing such mortality rates, coupled with that of mitigating the impacts of climate change, leaves us with no more time to tolerate carbon emissions from fossil fueled transport.
Image: Dublin Cycling Campaign
The latest UN scientific report has warned we may have only 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe if global warming exceeds 1.5C, singling out the transport sector as the fastest growing contributor to climate emissions
This first global WHO conference on health and air pollution is a unique occasion where national leaders from different sectors facing similar local challenges can meet and exchange experiences, learn from civil society and ultimately commit to agreed targets to meet the WHO’s air quality guidelines by 2030, matching the needs of reducing carbon emissions.
Image: WHO
Clean, renewable energy, electric vehicles, the elimination of fossil fuels subsidies, smarter urban planning, and better public transport infrastructure are some of the choices policy makers can make to avoid countless preventable deaths, drastically improve air quality and health, and contribute towards a safer climate.
At the conference, I plan to highlight how cycling can play a major role in transforming mobility around the world. Given the convenience, health benefits and affordability of bicycles, they could provide a far greater proportion of sustainable urban transport, helping reduce not only air pollution, but energy use and CO2 emissions worldwide.
Active mobility is often underestimated, but if you think about it, bicycles could be the ultimate icon of sustainable transport. As the far right takes power in countries across the planet, including most recently Brazil, city level solutions offer real hope and the best bet for change.
Image: WHO Image: WHO
About the author JP Amaral is an active member of the international Bicycle Mayor Network initiated by Amsterdam based social enterprise BYCS, and co-founder of the Bike Anjo Network (bikeanjo.org), currently coordinating the “Bicycle in the Plans” project. He has a bachelor degree on Environmental Management at the University of São Paulo and has been working in sustainable urban mobility since 2008. He is certified as an auditor on the BYPAD methodology – Bicycle Planning Audit, and is the Bicycle Mayor of São Paulo. He is also fellow member of the Red Bull Amaphyko network for social entrepreneurs and of the German Chancellor Fellowship program for tomorrow’s leaders from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, working with international cooperation towards cycling promotion, especially between Brazil and Europe.
Bike Anjo (Bike Angels) is a network of voluntary cyclists who engage people to use bicycles as a mean of transforming cities – from teaching how to ride a bicycle to identifying safe cycling routes for São Paulo inhabitants and building national campaigns.
The Bicycle Mayor Network is a global network of changemakers – initiated by Amsterdam based social enterprise BYCS – that radically accelerates cycling progress in cities worldwide. The individual use the power of their network to influence politics and the broader public to start cycling. Bicycle mayors transform cities, cities transform the world.
Recently, we have been workshopping our newest eco-performance idea.
It was our newest project’s conceptualization and development she thought would be an interesting addition to the GCCRP Climate Change Symposium program.
And of course – she was right!
So we put in an abstract and are presenting at the end of this week!
Griffith Climate Change Response Program (GCCRP) Climate Change Symposium.
The GCCRP Climate Change Symposium is a research forum where HDRers and Early Career Researchers from Griffith University share their discoveries, outcomes and innovations.
It is on at Griffith Uni Southbank Friday 24 August 2018, 9 am – 4 pm
The symposium features a range of research presentations that showcase the cross-cutting nature of climate change research.
The five key research themes are:
Climate change impacts
Climate change and food security
Community engagement in climate change adaptation
Climate change policy and theory
Climate change and health
Our Symposium Abstract
Here is the abstract for the session Claire and I will be presenting:
Furthering climate change discourse and action through performative works
Presenters: Claire Tracey and Nina Ginsberg
Collaborators Claire Tracey (Visual Arts) and Nina Ginsberg (Education) use performance and audience engagement to communicate environmental issues. Through community art engagement, they aim to connect with local communities on an immediate level, furthering climate change discourse and action through performative works. Their work links Climate Change and Environment Science themes with performance, design and community- art interaction.
This research explores the intersection of climate change research and artistic interpretations of how to convey complex environmental issues to communities in a proactive and engaging manner. Their work seeks to increase community awareness about climate change issues in ways that are novel, participatory and educational. Their projects are informed by feedback from the engagement of the project itself, creating a direct relationship between the action and the sustainable and environmental issues that affect our immediate society.
The result of each performance interaction is offered with an open spirit- with the reception by the public to be determined in the moment as a collaborative process.
This session will outline a number of climate change projects we have undertaken to explain how theory and practice are enacted, using archetypes such as a feminine ecological shadow warrior, whose presence echoes of hope and perseverance derived from historical ideas of female protection, nurture, power and subversion.
GCCRP Climate Change Symposium Program
About GCCRP
The Griffith Climate Change Response Program has been leading Griffith University’s research into climate change adaptation and mitigation since 2007.
GCCRP leads Griffith University’s research into climate change adaptation and mitigation.
As climate change issues cut across many fields of study its research projects are transdisciplinary. The program brings together the wealth of Griffith research expertise from across the University, enabling climate change problems to be addressed in a comprehensive manner.
GCCRP has successfully developed a number of strategic domestic, regional and international partnerships in the area of climate change adaptation and attracted significant external research funds.
The result is a growing portfolio of research and applied research projects where GCCRP works in collaboration with other research institutions, governments, international bodies, NGOs and communities to effectively understand, plan and respond to the adverse effects of a rapidly changing climate.
GCCRP now has a strong platform from which Griffith University’s research and expertise can influence the climate change policies, plans and actions required for effective adaptation and mitigation.
Many of us who ride know the inherent positive health, economic and environmental benefits of biking.
But it is always reassuring to have the hard facts to back it up at the next dinner party you go to…so here is some ripper data from the EU you can wave under the noses of any annoying your non-riders who pooh-pooh cycling’s economic contributions to society.
The ECF is a preeminent cycling advocacy group, whose work centres around progressing cycling via a range of themes including economic, policy, tourism, health and environment, technology and safety and infrastructure to name a few.
This report is interesting because from what it looks like, it was the first European attempt (definitely ECF’s first calculation) to monetise the internal and external benefits that come cycling in the EU-27 (EU 2007-2013 when it had 27 member states).
The ECF calculates the annual economic benefit of cycling in the EU-27 to be at least € 205 bn.
Report Highlights
Here are a few highlights from the report as outlined in a presentation by Chloe Mispelon (ECF):
Current economic benefits of cycling are huge (over 500 billion € for the EU 28, more than 1000€ per inhabitant each year)
The economic potential is important as cycling modal share today is way below its mid XXth century levels in most EU countries.
Cycling economic benefits are spread over a wide range of fields making the case for cross-sectoral strategies on cycling at local, national or EU level
Lack of data prevents research to explore many other cycling related economic benefits
This report is ECF’s second calculation of the internal and external benefits of cycling linked to the current level of cycling in the EU-28. It is an extended and updated version of the first report published in 2013. The calculations have been updated with the latest available figures; in some cases, the methodologies for calculating the benefits have been refined taking into account the feedback received; and more benefits have been added in a systematic way.
So what are the estimates?
Summing up the calculated and estimated benefits of cycling in all these sectors, ECF arrives at the following aggregate figures:
The present report clearly shows that the benefits of cycling occur not only in specific, isolated fields like transport or environmental policy, but in many other areas where the EU has competences as well, like industrial policy, employment, health and social policy.
An integrated EU cycling strategy that includes these fields and considers cycling in all relevant policy areas will therefore enable the whole EU to reap these benefits in the future, including the countries which currently have low rates of cycling.
In some areas, ECF identified benefits of cycling but were not able to give any calculation or estimation yet.
More qualitative and quantitative research is needed in those fields to quantify these benefit.
The aim of this report is therefore also to encourage further research on the subject in order to draw a more precise picture of the economic benefits of cycling in the future.
All images and data in this post come from ECF or the ECF”s Economic Benefits of Cycling in EU-27 Report.
Happy news for cyclists – a few weeks go in Brussels, the UN declared:
June 3rd is World Bicycle Day!
Previously, countries have independently self-initiated a day to celebrate the humble bicycle, but following a passionate and very well researched campaign lead by the World Cycling Alliance (WCA) and the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF), on 12th April, 2018, at the 72nd Regular Session of the UN General Assembly, full consensus and support of the 193 UN member states was reached.
This is a great win for cycling, bicycles and riding worldwide.
Just in the nick of time – June 3rd is fast approaching!
I am actually surprised that it took so long for the UN to recognise the significant value and positive impacts that bicycles have in relation to progressing local and global economic, environmental, health and sustainability priorities. Especially considering some of the other ‘International Day of the …’ that have been officially recognised by the UN for a long time.
April 18th – International Day for Monuments and Sites
May 2nd – World Tuna Day
June 16th – International Day of Family Remittances
Sept 30th – World Translation Day
Nov 21st – World Television Day
Yup – the bicycle is now up there with only the best!
How did it happen?
It took two and half years of persistent advocacy headed up by the WCA and the ECF and the production of a report detailing how amazing bicycles are.
Bike Europe reported that “We are extremely happy with this declaration,” said Dr Bernhard Ensink, Secretary General of the World Cycling Alliance (WCA) and the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) who campaigned for a UN-designated World Bicycle Day since 2016.
“Cycling is a source for social, economic and environmental benefits – and it is bringing people together. This UN declaration is an acknowledgement of the contribution of cycling to the sustainable development goals.”
Sustainability
WCA and ECF delivered a document to the UN in 2015 in which it is shown that cycling delivers directly on at least 12 of the 17 sustainable development goals, titled ‘Cycling Delivers on the Global Goals!’.
The declaration invites all Member States and relevant stakeholders to celebrate and promote awareness of the World Bicycle Day. The declaration encourages Member States to devote particular attention to the bicycle in cross-cutting development strategies and to include the bicycle in international, regional, national and subnational development policies and programs.
H.E. Ambassador, Aksoltan Ataeva, Permanent Representative of Turkmenistan to the United Nations, introduced the draft resolution, co-sponsored by 56 countries, to the General Assembly for the vote.
Cycling Delivers on the Global Goals
The Cycling Delivers on the Global Goals report is a very thoughtful, infromative and easy read.
It highlights main areas where bicycles contribute significantly to progressing Global Sustainable Development Goals.
The European Cyclists Federation state that: the Global Goals, as stipulated in the preamble of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), seek to realize the human rights of all. Cycling is already delivering on these goals worldwide, and this is a good reason to invest more in cycling. Making transportation more sustainable is of critical importance for humanity and the planet.
Moreover, active mobility is a human right on all scales – including the right to cycle. Governments at all levels should provide safe access to public space, protect those that walk and cycle, and ensure – through mobility – equal participation in society.
Hooray!
Bicycles really do create change!
Viva la Bici!
Put this auspicious date in your diary.
Time to organise something awesome on two wheels for June 3rd to celebrate! See you there!!
All images: Cycling Delivers on the Global Goals Report (2016)
