Mozambikes

Alleviating poverty through the provision of clean and affordable transportation.
2014 SEED Africa Award; Government of Flanders
Green Technologies
Maputo
Mozambique

Mozambikes generates income from selling locally-assembled quality bikes as a means of transport as well as mobile advertising space. Companies and non-profit organisations buy and distribute branded bicycles to communities, employees and in marketing initiatives, or advertisers can buy branding space, which makes the bicycles affordable for low-income consumers.

Branded bikes act as moving billboards and provide cost-effective advertising particularly in hard-to-reach rural areas. To date, over 100 companies have helped distribute nearly 2600 bikes to Mozambicans. Women receive free training on how to ride and maintain bikes, as well as earning incomes from making bike baskets. Carbon emissions will be reduced as more people choose bikes over motorised forms of transport.

Eco-Inclusive Impacts
Bikes are improving the social and economic conditions of rural Mozambicans. Incomes increase as travel times are reduced, more produce can be carried and better markets reached. Bicycles improve access to health care, including through new bike ambulances.
  • Empowering women by offering workshops and training.
  • Reducing walking hours to reach farming plots, collect resources, and access to schools and health services.
  • Providing access to employment, offering a way to transport goods, benefiting 80% of the informal sector.
  • Offering a clean form of alternative transport, reducing carbon emissions.
  • Reducing the reliance on motorised high-polluting forms of transport such as cars and mini-buses.
  • Bicycles are assembled locally with hand tools. All waste products are recycled.
  • Increasing daily incomes of Mozambicans in rural areas, by dramatically reducing travel times.
  • Assembling and branding bicycles locally to create jobs.
  • Employing women to produce bicycle baskets thereby stimulating rural economies and creating new markets.

Partners

Mozambikes assembles and sells quality bikes at affordable prices. It customises bikes with logos and colours and encourages companies and non-profit organisations to buy advertising space or branded bikes outright and distribute them to rural areas.

Mozambikes Ltd. constructs and sells quality bicycles that serve as moving billboards. They also distribute donated bicycles and hold workshops to teach women to ride and maintain bicycles.

Mozambikes Social Development is an affiliate of Mozambikes Ltd. and raises donations to ensure Mozambique’s poorest – those below the minimum wage – receive the bikes for free.

United States Agency for International Development (USAID) provides funding for an evaluation plan, training sales staff and technicians as well as prototyping new technologies.

KIVA provides a portal for Mozambikes to raise money and to offer bicycles as a micro-loan.