The World Cycling Aliance (WCA) is an European Cyclists’ Federation initiative to build a global network of non-governmental organizations with a substantial interest in promoting cycling. The main opbjective of the network is not only to advocate for cycling as a means of transport within international institutions-such as UN, OECD/ITF, World Bank- but also to promote and support the exchange of knowledge, expertise and co-operation of cycling associations and organizations worldwide.
The decision of the ECF board to create the World Cycling Alliance was taken during Velo-city 2013 in Vienna. ECF proposed the creation of a World Cycling Alliance as a center of coordination, a platform of knowledge exchange and a strong advocacy voice targeting international organizations. Other organizations represent sports and industry on a global level, but there is nothing equivalent for daily and leisure cycling. Cycling assocations from Canada, Australia, USA as well as Africa and South America want to be a part of the big debate and they request from ECF to take the lead.
As a first step to draw a roadmap to the founding and launching of WCA, ECF presented the World Cycling Alliance to the world on April 10th, at the World Urban Forum 7 in Medellin, Colombia. The second step of the WCA will be the presentation of the network to ECF members during the Annual General Meeting 2014 in Dublin, Ireland on 26th of April. Finally, the WCA network will be officially luanched on the closing ceremony of Velo-city in Adelaide, Australia on 30th of May.
