Students in Ghana who started building bicycles from bamboo
A student project in Ghana grew into a women-led workshop making bicycle frames from locally grown bamboo, creating jobs and offering a low-energy alternative to metal frames.
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The small thing
In 2010 an entrepreneurship lecturer challenged students to create their own jobs. Bernice Dapaah and two fellow students decided to try turning Ghana's bamboo into bicycle frames.
The problem
Many young people in rural Ghana, especially women with little formal education, struggle to find work, and many move to cities. Affordable transport is scarce in rural areas, and metal bicycle frames take energy-intensive manufacturing.
Why Bernice Dapaah started
Writing for the World Economic Forum in 2014, Dapaah said a college entrepreneurship professor had pushed students to create self-employment rather than seek office jobs. She and two classmates wanted to create jobs for young people in rural Ghana and saw an opportunity in the country's bamboo.
What they did
The initiative trained people with no prior bike-building experience, mostly women, to make bamboo frames suited to rough roads and carrying farm loads. In its early days it also aimed to employ street children and people with disabilities. With support from the GEF Small Grants Programme, implemented through the Bright Generation Community Foundation, it set up a training centre and workshop and planted bamboo.
The bikes are sold in Ghana and abroad. Dapaah has said a large share of output was aimed at international buyers.
What changed
In 2014 Dapaah wrote that the team of 30 people, almost all women, made 60 to 100 bikes a month; this is her own account. According to the GEF, by 2013 the project had created stable jobs for ten bike builders, 25 young people had planted a hectare with 1,500 bamboo seedlings, and the approach had been copied in two other communities. The initiative won a UNEP SEED Award in 2010 and was a UN Climate Change Momentum for Change 'Lighthouse Activity' in 2013. No independent figure on carbon savings was found.
What they learned
Dapaah has said the biggest early challenge was labour: nobody knew how to build bamboo bikes, so the team trained women itself, some in several skills to cover absences.
“In the beginning, the major challenge was labour.”Bernice Dapaah and Ghana Bamboo Bikes Initiative, as quoted by World Economic Forum
Copy this idea
Practical guidance written by our editors from the sources below. Adapt it to your place, and check local rules and safety first.
- Problem addressed
- Lack of rural jobs and affordable transport
- What to do
- Train local people to make a useful product from a renewable local material
- Materials and resources
- Locally grown bamboo, joining materials, standard bicycle components
- Approximate cost
- Moderate
- Skills
- Frame building, quality testing, basic business management
- Time
- Months to train builders; longer to establish bamboo supply and sales
- People needed
- A small team of trainers and trainees
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Risks and limitations
- Unsafe frames if quality control is weak; harvesting bamboo faster than it regrows
- How to adapt it
- Apply the same model to other local materials or products, such as furniture or crafts
- Lessons learned
- Invest in training first, plant your own supply, and expect finance to be the hardest part
Why it matters
Bamboo bicycles will not transform transport on their own. But the initiative shows how a fast-growing local material, combined with training, can create skilled work for people often left out of jobs, while making a useful, low-energy product.
Policy connection
International commitments this kind of action contributes to. Listing a framework does not mean the person or group was working towards it.
- SDG 7.1 and 7.2: Universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy; increase the share of renewable energy.
What didn't work
Dapaah has said that no one locally had the skills at first, so training took time, and that attracting investors in the region was difficult even for viable ventures. Early plans, such as a government order for rural teachers and health workers reported in 2011, were not confirmed in later sources found.
Editor's note
A World Intellectual Property Organization video feature in March 2025 describes the company as operating, with Dapaah training workers and growing her own bamboo.
Sources: how do we know?
Evidence level: Documented. Supported by reliable published sources such as UN agencies, award bodies and reputable journalism. Not yet independently re-verified by our editors. What the person says and what independent sources establish are attributed separately in the text.
- organisational
How bamboo bikes gave women a new future in Ghana — Bernice Dapaah, World Economic Forum, 12 March 2014Supports: Founder's own account: 2010 start as a student with two classmates; 30-person mostly female team; 60–100 bikes a month; labour and funding challenges - un agency
Christiana Figueres and Ban Ki-moon celebrate SGP's innovative Ghanaian bamboo bikes at the UNFCCC COP 19 — GEF Small Grants Programme, Global Environment Facility, November 2013Supports: SGP support via Bright Generation Community Foundation; training centre; ten bike builders; 1 ha / 1,500 seedlings planted by 25 youth; replication in two communities; awards - reputable journalism
Ghana Bamboo Bikes in high demand — Kofi Adu Domfeh, MyJoyOnline / Luv FM, 21 March 2011Supports: Kumasi base; aim to employ street children and people with disabilities; 2010 UNEP SEED Award; export focus - un agency
Ghana Bamboo Bikes Initiative (Momentum for Change Lighthouse Activity) — UN Climate Change secretariat, UNFCCC, 2013Supports: Recognition as Momentum for Change activity; aims on jobs for young women and lower-energy production - un agency
How a strong brand is helping Ghana Bamboo Bikes ride further — WIPO, World Intellectual Property Organization, 25 March 2025Supports: Company still operating in 2025; Dapaah trains workers and grows her own bamboo
