Most Africans lack access to any form of transport and spend hours every day walking to collect clean water, firewood or to reach school or work. Not only does this take a toll on their health and time spent working, it often means children miss school altogether.

A bicycle is an affordable and straightforward mode of transport, improving access to education, jobs, markets, and community activities. The bicycle can help the (farmer) families overcome the distance barrier and make it possible to transport more in less time. Bicycles are a valuable tool to increase a households’ disposable income since for instance more crops can be brought to the market, more markets can be visited (due to an expanded caption area). It saves time so more time for other income generating activities (income diversification) such as bicycle taxi, street vending, garbage collection, etc.

Africa is plagued by the combination of extremely poor quality bicycles and used Western bicycles that have been “donated” to Africa.  Neither of these bicycles are suitable for the roads and loads of rural Africa, and often, they are exclusively single-sized male frames (not at all acceptable for students, particularly girl students).   Importantly, used Western bikes are particularly problematic in the rural context as spare parts are non-existent and they are not built for the local road conditions, so even basic repairs are impossible and thus ensure their life span are short.