The ECF has officially committed to the vision of ISCA (International Sport and Culture Association) to have 100 million more physically active EU citizens by 2020 – and will play a central role in it, helping to account for more than one third of the final goal.

The announcement was made at a presentation the ECF gave at the end of November to the members of the “Platform for action on diet and physical activity” from the European Commission’s Directorate for Health (DG SANCO).

“Working with ISCA is great, we are very happy to add to their NowWeMove campaign our own chapter. We call it NowWeMove by Cycle” – said ECF General Secretary Bernhard Ensink.

“ECF needs alliances with credible partners to promote cycling. ISCA is an important interface for us to reach new audiences. We work primarily in the world of mobility – ISCA focuses mostly on of physical activity: this is a perfect match”.

Guarantee Europeans Access to Cycling Opportunities

To reach its and ISCA’s goal, the ECF will talk Europeans into cycling in a number of ways, providing know-how, networks and ideas to national coordinators all around Europe. From mountain bike lessons in Bulgaria to road safety campaigns in Estonia to cycle promotion in Greece, just to mention a few, the ECF will guarantee Europeans have access to cycling programmes as wide and diverse as possible, targeted to cyclists of all abilities and social groups.

The set-up of similar partnerships is one of the goals of DG SANCO’s platform. This is composed, in fact, by many players in the food industry, advertising associations, NGOs dealing with nutrition and/or public health. By joining forces, the players can create that added value which is one of the purposes of the platform and ultimately of the EU itself. The partnership between ECF and ISCA is specially meaningful as only a few of the members work on physical activity and only ECF is exclusively promoting daily physical activity and active transport.

In the Platform for Action, Diet and Physical Activity the EU Commission brings together stakeholders in the nutrition, health and physical activity sectors.

Encouraging physical activity by EU citizens is a concern for the European Commission. The Commission's White Paper regarding a strategy on nutrition, overweight, and obesity-related health issues aims at contributing to the reduction of the risks associated with poor nutrition and limited physical activity in the EU. DG SANCO has 5 areas of action, one of them being Health. To achieve its health improvement targets, the DG combines the activity of a high level group (Government representatives from EU member countries) with the aforementioned Platform for action on diet and physical activity.

Targets tying in with each other

ECF’s own long-term goal is doubling the number of cyclists in the EU by 2020. At the moment, 7.4% of all EU citizens cycle (approx. 35 million people). The ECF vision of doubling this figure means contributing 35% of the NowWeMove total vision. The two targets of ECF and NowWeMove are very well aligned and the ECF is proud to be one of the few NGOs in this group of big players.

This is not the first time the ECF’s work promoting active mobility stands out in the platform. Back in 2011 the ECF teamed up with the European Association of Communications Agencies (another member of the platform) to promote bike-to-work campaigns to companies.

ECF at the stakeholders' table

The Platform for Action, Diet and Physical Activity was set up a decade ago as a public-private partnership. The EU government brings together stakeholders in the nutrition, health and physical activity sectors.Each stakeholder makes annual commitments to take some new action to tackle unhealthy lifestyles and nutritional patterns. Among the most important organizations in the intergroup is FoodDrinkEurope, the association of some of the world’s major food and drink companies operating in the EU.

“We are very happy to showcase the success of NowWeMove to our partners from the platform and to give a concrete example of what effective cross-sector collaboration can achieve in favour of physical activity”, is the conclusion of Adrián Gonzalez, liaison for ISCA and the ECF.