DBI was one of the 55 partner organizations (international, local, government agency, youth groups, academic institutions and NGOs) of World Bicycle Forum 2020, a virtual event led by the national bicycle campaigners’ network. The event was mobilized as a very important platform to take the urban agenda to the government agencies at the national, provincial and local levels. It was also very productive to connect and mobilize primary stakeholders and bicycle groups to engage in broader urban issues. The event had 450 participants such as volunteers, panelists, organizers and guests, while its online engagement by the end of the event was 70,000, as all events including multiple pre-events were shared live on social media globally. Of the 56 events organized in the forum, many sessions were organized by DBI in collaboration with other stakeholders.
Similarly, DBI was directly involved with the execution of a session through which 12 city mayors from different parts of Nepal participated in a discussion about the bicycle agenda, led by local bicycle groups, where the scope of intervention and local strategy for implementation were discussed. There will be a need to further strengthen; local community groups to self-organize for effective lobbying capacity.
As part of the forum, collaboration was also done with the municipal association of Nepal, to build a national scale municipal collaboration for bicycle intervention by the local government. A year plan for 7 provincial consultation programs for municipalities of the 7 provinces has been planned out through the sessions and post-event discussion.
As part of the World bicycle Forum, many sessions with the involvement of the DBI team were facilitated to build the capacity of the bicycle community at the national and regional levels. Some of the other sessions included sharing from Continental Bicycle network from Europe and Africa, National Bicycle network from Brazil, and Peru, Sessions by Carfree Cities Alliance, BYCS India network sharing.