The Embassy of the Kingdom of The Netherlands continues to bring together a diverse group of stakeholders to support them in strategizing their push for sustainable mobility in Sri Lanka through multiple co-design sessions.
Having earlier partnered with the Colombo Municipal Council to pilot ‘CarFreeCMB’, the Netherlands continued their support and focus on sustainable mobility in Sri Lanka working closely with Ride for Life, a lobby group of Sri Lankan citizens who have been promoting cycling as a primary mode of mobility in Sri Lanka. Engaging with the private sector in the push for sustainable mobility as well, the Embassy awarded six winners access to Dutch consultancy on supporting and implementing their bike to work schemes within their respective organizations earlier this year.
As the Sri Lankan government continues to explore and adopt sustainable mobility practices, the Netherlands has been a strong supporter through technical assistance, knowledge sharing and capacity development to government institutions such as the Road Development Authority and Urban Development Authority too.
Now the Embassy is bringing all civil society, private and government sector stakeholders together:, a first co-design session was convened virtually on 31 August to discuss the required steps to mainstream sustainable mobility in the country. As a follow up a physical design thinking session was held on the 18th ofOctober facilitated by Citra Social Innovation Lab, South Asia’s first social innovation lab which is a joint initiative of the United Nations Development Programme and the Government of Sri Lanka.
While the first virtual session revolved around understanding the current challenges and stakeholders, the second design thinking session focused on ideation of solutions, prioritization of them and development of an action plan needed to effectively mainstream cycling in the country.
Are you/your organization/company interested in joining this movement for sustainable mobility? Please contact innovations.lk@undp.org.