World Bicycle Relief
World Bicycle Relief is committed to helping people overcome the challenge of distance. It provides bicycles for people who lack means of transport, thus expanding their access to education, healthcare, markets and other essential services. Over the past 20 years, World Bicycle Relief has distributed more than 1 million bicycles in 28 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, empowering over 5 million women, men and children. We fund World Bicycle Relief’s operations in Zambia, where it has provided more than 340,000 bicycles to date, reaching more than 1.7 million people. This work is driving a profound transformation in rural transport that has increased household incomes and access to vital services.
worldbicyclerelief.org | Partner since 2021
Challenge
Millions of rural Zambians do not have access to public or private transport. Walking remains their main mode of travel, consuming hours of their time every day and limiting their ability to attend school, receive healthcare and deliver goods to market. This barrier intensifies cycles of poverty and inequality, especially for women and girls.
Response
World Bicycle Relief (WBR) provides rugged, durable bicycles to people in low-income communities as an affordable transport solution. In addition to its purpose-built “Buffalo bicycles”, WBR also supports these communities to build strong local bike ecosystems, including trained mechanics, reliable spare parts and local retail networks to ensure long-term use.
In Zambia, where we support WBR’s work, bicycles are helping students, healthcare workers and farmers go to school, reach patients faster, transport more goods to increase their income and simply travel around their communities more effectively. A recent impact study has confirmed the transformative impact of this cost-effective means of transport: More than 14 dollars in economic gains were generated for every dollar invested in the programme in Zambia, with families who had access to a bicycle increasing their income by an average of 43%.
World Bicycle Relief aims to distribute a further 90,000 bicycles to rural Zambians by the end of 2026.
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