Indo-German Cooperation

How Indian Cities Are Shaping Sustainable Mobility

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The article talks about Indo-German cooperation on sustainable mobility. Kashmira Dubash shares with us the success story of 'India Cycles4Change and Streets4People Challenges'—how the initiative traversed its path—from an ideation to a reality. The author opines and demonstrates how no best practice can truly take shape without active citizen and public engagement in this Indo-German alliance.

India and Germany share a longstanding and close cooperation on climate, the environment and sustainable development. Since 2008, India is one of the priority countries with which the International Climate Initiative (IKI) maintains a particularly close cooperation. The IKI projects in India are implemented in cooperation with the Indian Government and address a wide range of climate actions, aim to restore and conserve natural carbon sinks and to conserve biodiversity.

Zooming-in on Implementation on the Ground

An apt example of Indo-German cooperation is in the area of sustainable mobility. In 2020, a bold vision to transform urban mobility took shape through the collaborative efforts of India's Smart Cities Mission, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), which was supported by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Government. The India Cycles4Change and Streets4People Challenges were launched with the goal of reshaping India's streets into safer, more accessible spaces for walking and cycling. What began as a shared ambition quickly evolved into a dynamic journey of change that has reshaped the landscape of urban mobility across the nation. Over four years, the Challenges enabled participating cities to build strong partnerships, engage communities, and strengthen their capacities by collaborating with national and local experts to create safer and more accessible streets for everyone.