HealthBridge’s partner in Nepal is Digo Bikas Institute (DBI). DBI works to ensure people’s rights to health and improving the health of urban residents. DBI currently focuses on creating safe streets for walking, cycling, and community activities.

Ensuring people have pleasant and safe places to walk is important for health. It reduces injury rates, can increase physical activity levels, and decreases the risk of developing non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as cancer and diabetes. Safe streets also encourage people to move about outside and provides more opportunities for neighbours and community members to meet.

DBI’s activities include:

• Promoting car-free areas in different municipalities of Kathmandu Valley
• Promoting cycling events to help people become comfortable with cycling
  
• Conducting policy analysis of Model City Development Plan and Proposal of Ministry of Urban Development
• Building a national network for Car-Free Cities Alliance (CCA)
• Organizing workshops with policy makers to gain attention and interest towards sustainable forms of transportation, car-free cities and public space.

Expected results include:

• Increased number of people using streets as open public spaces
• Increased number of streets that support placemaking and community events
• Increased number of people able to walk or cycle to destinations such as open public spaces, local public markets, schools, work, and transit
• Increased number of quality improvements to the walking and cycling environment
• Increased number of streets that support and encourage walking and cycling.