The Road traffic Injuries Research Network (RTIRN) is a partnership of over 1083 individuals and institutions from 113 countries. They are now starting the process of putting together their July-September Newsletter dedicated to “NGO’s and RTI” and they are seeking contributions.

The Road traffic Injuries Research Network (RTIRN) is a partnership of over 1083 (up to December, 2013) individuals and institutions – from 113 countries that collaborate to further research on the impact and causes of Road Traffic Injuries (RTIs) in low- and middle-income countries and to identify appropriate interventions to the problem. YOURS received the following request from the RTIRN secretariat that might be of interest for you:

Dear Partners,

We are now starting the process of putting together our July-September Newsletter dedicated to “NGO’s and RTI” and we are seeking contributions from our partners. In this upcoming issue we are focusing on contributions from our researchers from all regions. Please send your contributions about:

• Your work in the area of NGO’s and RTI preferably in low and middle income countries.
• Any new initiatives that are being taken in your region towards NGO’s and RTI
  
• Health system response to NGO’s and RTI.

It has only to be a paragraph (300 – 350 words) or so, and the inclusion of pictures would be highly appreciated. The deadline for submitting the contributions is June 10th. 

We shall also appreciate if you send us any recent publications related to road traffic injuries and any future events that you think would be of the interest of the RTIRN community. Be sure your contribution is sent on time.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Best wishes,
RTIRN Secretary
secretariat@rtirn.net

RTIRN VISION: “To reduce the burden of road traffic injuries, particularly in low- and middle-income countries through the promotion, conduct and utilization of research.”

RTIRN GOAL: “To establish networking mechanisms and assist in the creation of partnerships between RTI researchers and institutions globally, to support research and research capacity in low- and middle-income countries.”

Our advocacy pillar has a clear goal; to ensure youth and road safety issues are placed high on international agendas around the world and given the attention it deserves as the number one killer of young people aged 15-29 globally. This is our strategy as a member of the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration and our continued efforts to push for road safety to be recognised as a Post-2015 Development Agenda focus.

World Conference on Youth 2014 will take place from 6th to 10th May, 2014 at Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall in Colombo, Sri Lanka. WCY 2014’s Cross-cutting theme is ‘mainstreaming Youth in the Post-2015 Development Agenda’. YOURS will be attending the event to bring road safety to the agenda and push for it to be included in the youth arm of the SDG.

Some of the objective of the World Conference Include:

• To create an inclusive youth participation platform that enables young people to review the progress on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals
• To share ideas, experiences and innovative approaches for effectively contributing to the post-2015 development agenda and its implementation
• To facilitate a process that increases awareness on and implementation of the World Programme for Action on Youth (WPAY)
• To facilitate effective partnerships with youth, youth-led organisations and youth movements to further strengthen inclusive youth participation in the decision-making processes and implementation of the post-2015 development agenda
• To contribute to the establishment of a permanent youth engagement mechanism that ensures consistent follow- up with young people and further boosts their participation and partnership in the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda at national, regional and global levels.

Right to Safe and Sustainabe Transport
“We want to see targets, indicators and new partnerships to promote safe and sustainable transport included in the post-2015 ‘Sustainable Development Goals’. When road safety is lacking, development and poverty eradication objectives are undermined. Road traffic injuries are a burden on the poor and vulnerable and are the leading global cause of death among young people aged 15-29. By prioritising road safety we can create safer environments, reduce road traffic deaths and injuries and prevent millions of premature deaths”.

Proposed Target:
The proposed target by 2030 is to halve the burden of global road traffic crashes from the 2010 baseline in the WHO Global Status Report on Road Safety 2013.

Fatalities target:

• By 2030, reducing the number of people killed on the world’s roads to less than 620,000 per year from the 2010 baseline of 1.24 million per year.Fatality targets by country income cluster (the Results Framework also includes injury and economic targets by income level). Reduce road traffic fatality rates by 2030 to:

< 4 per 100,000 population in high-income countries (baseline of 8.7 in 2010 )
< 7 per 100,000 population in middle-income countries (baseline of 20.1 in 2010)
< 12 per 100,000 population in low-income countries (baseline of 18.3 in 2010)

Serious Injuries target:

• By 2030, reduce the number of people seriously injured on the world’s roads to less than 6,200,000 per year from the 2010 baseline of 12.4 million per year.

Economic Impact target:

• By 2030, reduce the global economic impact of road crashes to less than 1.5% of GDP per year from the current 3% of GDP per year

Communications Officer and Coordinator of the Global Youth Network for Road Safety, Mr Manpreet Darroch will be attending on behalf of YOURS and representing road safety at the event. Follow him on Twitter for live updates.

Our YOURS Coordinator for Europe Ms Ana Rita Lavado, as a passionate advocate for road safety across the European Region, has been involved in a range of advocacy efforts. Her latest updates comes after the implementation from a workshop based around the European Road Safety Charter in Portugal.

The European Road Safety Charter, led by the European Commission, is the largest civil society platform on road safety. To date, more than 2,300 public and private entities have committed to the Charter and carried out road safety actions and initiatives targeted at their members, employees and the rest of civil society.

These actions have strengthened road safety culture across Europe, improved common knowledge about the causes of accidents and helped to create preventative measures and solutions. The Charter’s diverse community of members is made up of companies, associations, local authorities, research institutions, universities and schools. All committed entitles are given genuine recognition and their actions are made public.

The 3rd European Road Safety Charter Workshop took place in Evora, Portugal, in mid April 2014. This follows the first workshop in Vilnius, Lithuania, and the second one in Drachten, the Netherlands.

This workshop was part of a series of ERSCharter events across all 28 Member States over the next 3 years. The tour aims to continually create awareness of road safety amongst young people, whilst following the EU Road Safety Policy Orientations set up by the European Commission for the decade 2011-2020.

The association GARE welcomed road safety stakeholders and experts in Evora, to debate with Portuguese youngsters on the current issues they are facing on the road.

After coming back last November 2013 from Italy to work on the European Youth Forum for Road Safety (EYFRS), the Portuguese Delegate from GARE, Ms Ana Rita Lavado (recently nominated by YOURS as the new European Regional Coordinator), has been preparing the Portuguese Charter Workshop event, in order to create new synergies between the Charters’ members and to collaborate to develop new Youth Commitments in Portugal. The present phase of the ERSCharter, which is running for 3 years (2013- 2016), continues to promote the commitment of civil society with a focus on vulnerable road users, especially youth. For its promotion all over Europe, workshops are planned to take place in all the Member States during these 3 years, in order to follow the EU Road Safety Policy Orientations set up by the European Commission for the decade 2011-2020.

GARE is a Portuguese NGO, developing awareness campaigns in the most stratums and sectors of the population to promote a road safety culture. Celebrating its 9th anniversary on the 11th of April, GARE has been active all those years through the development of a set of various activities: several sensitisation’s actions on the field (e.g. with their famous Alcokart), training and pedagogical work with students and teachers at high, secondary and primary schools, information to all kind of public, seminaries and workshops with specialists on the theme. GARE’s main goal is to promote a Road Safety Culture among youngsters and general society, and also to do effective work to prevent fatalities and injuries on the road.

The Portuguese Workshop was held in Evora, from 2pm to 6pm, with an identification of the main national issues, following a debate on the potential actions to develop, in order to end up with implementable outcomes in collaboration with the main Portuguese road safety Stakeholders and engender more specific commitments within the ERSCharter.

This update was provided by Ana Rita Lavado – Coordinator of the European Region