To help improve road safety across Africa, and with the support of the FIA Foundation, iRAP is proud to announce grants to support 60 road safety professionals from low and lower-middle-income countries to build their capability to use the iRAP methodology. 

iRAP Global Programme Director Greg Smith said more than 90 per cent of road fatalities occur in low- and middle-income countries and Africa is particularly hard hit.

“Over 19,000 people are killed every day in low- and middle-income Africa and injury is an additional hidden burden,” he said.

According to iRAP’s Vaccines for Roads Big Data Tool, it is likely that some 194 people suffer spinal injuries including paralysis, 1,589 people are left with brain injuries and 20 loose limbs in road crashes at a cost of USD$247 million – every day. With road traffic crashes now the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5–29 years, the aim is to empower young professionals with the best skills and knowledge – creating a better future for their community.

“Road trauma is a crippling burden borne by families and communities,” Mr Smith said, “Improving capacity to manage road infrastructure safety is a critical step in eliminating high-risk roads and saving lives. We believe it is critically important to support young engineers and give them the opportunity to learn about safer roads and the iRAP methodology. We have created categories specifically for the under 29-year-old professionals to help support and benefit them,’ he added.

The Global Status Report on Road Safety published in 2018 states that progress to save lives on roads is evident in the use of the International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) methodology and the star rating tool for road networks.

By helping to build the capacity of professionals in low and lower-middle-income countries to use the iRAP methodology, the Training and Accreditation grants are a tangible contribution towards supporting the achievement of the Decade of Action for Road Safety goal to halve the number of road deaths and injuries by 2030 and the United Nations Global Road Safety Performance Targets. Target 3 states: “By 2030, all new roads achieve technical standards for all road users that take into account road safety, or meet a three-star rating or better”; and Target 4 states: “By 2030, more than 75% of travel on existing roads is on roads that meet technical standards for all road users that take into account road safety”.

Successful grant recipients will:

• Gain access to all iRAP online courses for a period of 12 months;
• Be eligible to apply for accreditation within the first 6 months;
• Those that gain accreditation, be eligible for accreditation renewals for the following 2-year period.

The courses include content on-road surveys, road attribute coding, analysis and reporting and star rating for designs. From there, successful recipients can also gain advanced knowledge on how to use the iRAP ViDA software to perform road assessment projects.

The Grant Scheme was announced on the final day of the World Bank and iRAP helping save lives in Africa – BIGRS 2020-25 webinar series which attracted more than 1,160 registrations from 112 countries for the free event.

For further questions, please contact iRAP Training and Accreditation Coordinator Alessandra Francoia via email: training@irap.org

DOWNLOAD ACCREDITATION GRANTS ANNOUNCEMENT WITH DETAILS

Last Friday, July 16, YOURS – Youth for Road Safety Communications Officer Maolin Macatangay leads the session on Road Safety and Road Traffic Injuries during the Online Asia Pacific Regional Meeting (APRM) under the IFMSA – International Federation of Medical Students Associations. The APRM is part of the annual regional meetings that strengthen the link between the IFMSA students to promote the development of new projects at a regional scale.

IFMSA Regional Meetings
IFMSA holds regional meetings for its members that take place every year and are hosted by at least one National Member Organization (NMO). The IFMSA Regional Meetings are available for the members of the IFMSA. It is announced by the Organizing Committees on the IFMSA Servers and is preceded by a pre-regional meeting.

The 2021 Online Asia Pacific Regional Meeting ran from July 14 to July 21. The theme for this year’s meeting was This Information or Disinformation: Our Fear of the Solution. IFMSA Regional Leader for the Asia Pacific, Matthew Chow, talked about the community within the region that helped bolster efforts of the IFMSA in public health.  

“As youth, we must have the courage to really believe that we can offer perceptive insights into what is happening and initiate these conversations that, at times, maybe hard.” – Matthew Chow 

Road Safety and Road Traffic Injuries Session
During the session on road safety, Ms. Macatangay talked about how road safety is the leading killer of young people worldwide and how young people from low to middle-income countries are often the most affected.

Apart from talking about road safety, the discussion also covered what young people are doing to combat the road safety crisis through the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety. The discussion covered how the Coalition is supporting young people in efforts to localize road safety efforts in their region.

During the session, it was emphasized that engaging young people are the key to achieve the SDG targets on road safety and for successful meaningful engagement and involvement in local and global public health and development efforts. “Meaningful youth engagement is both the means and the ends for sustained development”. 

Be part of the youth and road safety movement by joining the Coalition! 

JOIN THE COALITION

Last Friday, July 16, the Global Youth Coalition along with UNITE 2030, FIA Foundation, and Restless Development officially launched the Youth Manifesto – a document that presents the main issues and priorities young people face as it relates to the Sustainable Development Goals. 

The Youth Manifesto
The Youth Manifesto is a product of a polling system that was launched last September 2020 during the 75^thUN General Assembly called “nothing for us without us”. The poll asked young people about the biggest challenges they face which were then discussed through the UN75 Dialogue. All these ideas and opinions were gathered in a document that supports the demands of the youth when it comes to the global agenda.

The document emphasizes that young people are often “seen but not heard” stating that this was caused by the lack of meaningful youth engagement on issues that matter, lack of investment, and lack of political will at all levels of decision-making. 

The Manifesto presents the everyday struggles of young people around the world, specifically unemployment, quality education, health and well-being, sustainable cities and communities, climate change, and road safety. To address these issues, through the manifesto, young people are demanding advocacy and collaboration, data and investments, and human-centered and community-based actions

Official launch
The launch featured different youth leaders from around the world to talk more about Manifesto. The Global Youth Coalition was represented by Thiago Gruner from Brazil, Soumita Chakraborty from India, and Simon Patrick Obi from Nigeria.

Soumita talked about the urgency of addressing the climate crisis and talked about how it connected with road safety. “Climate change is not anymore is an event that will take place in the future, it is already here. I would like to highlight that, among others, transportation is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions hence climate action definitely needs to be planned for in accordance to sustainable mobility and efforts to de-carbonize the transport sector”.

Simon talked about the importance and necessity of involving young people in policymaking and decision-making efforts saying that “we have the solution”, especially when it comes to the leading killer of young people worldwide; road crashes.  

“Just like the way the world rose up to the challenges of COVID, we are also calling the world to rise up to the challenge of road traffic crashes. We’re telling leaders and stakeholders of the world to start engaging young people. Start involving us in policymaking, start reaching out to us and that way, we are able to solve this problem”. – Simon Patrick Obi 

The manifesto was written by youth leaders of the different organizations who worked on the manifesto; Thiago Gruner from the Coalition, Shagun Sharma from Restless Development, Linda Ngozwana from UNITE 2030, and Kristeena Monteith from the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth. 

ACCESS YOUTH MANIFESTO 

The second week of the #ArtforRoadSafety challenge kicks off today with our artist Sylar Rober Ssempijja from Uganda. Art for Road Safety is the first challenge for safer mobility on the African continent. Held in Egypt, Uganda, and Senegal, the purpose of the challenge is to change behaviors and empower young people to raise awareness on road safety through artistic intervention.

The challenge runs for three weeks that began last Tuesday, July 6 with Ahmed Fathy (Elna2ash) from Egypt and will continue in Uganda for the second week and Senegal for the third. The Art for Road Safety is the first challenge for safer mobility on the African continent. Its goal is to raise awareness on issues around road safety through creative interventions.

The second week focuses on Sylar Rober Ssempijja from Uganda. Robert is a Ugandan dancer, breakdancer, choreographer, and teacher. He uses dance and art to tackle cultural issues.

Through his art, Robert draws attention to the importance of wearing helmets to save the lives of individuals, friends, and family. His message, “Protect your head. Save lives”. 

To participate in this week’s challenge, you will need to reinterpret or reproduce Robert’s Yambala Helmet dance! Be creative and have fun!

Follow these instructions to take part in the challenge; (1) Watch Robert’s #YambalaHelmet dance and download the song by going to bit.ly/yambalahelmet so you can dance to it yourself, (2) Record yourself doing the dance! Be creative and have fun!, (3) Post the video on your social media channels and tag the Coalition, and (4) Use the hashtags #ArtforRoadSafety, #YambalaHelmet, and #YourHelmetYourLife

Each artist for the Art for Road Safety Challenge offers a different message that helps raise awareness on road safety issues identified in their respective countries.

Make sure to follow the Coalition to stay updated on the #ArtforRoadSafety challenge.

WATCH THE CHALLENGE VIDEO HERE 

The ECOSOC High-Level Statement
The statement was created and circulated in accordance with paragraphs 30 and 31 of the ECOSOC Resolution 1996/31 that states that relevant statements related to the work of the council may be submitted by organizations in general consultative status and special consultative status on subjects in which these organizations have special competence.

The statement will be part of the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) which serves as the UN central platform for follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals. The HLPF and the statement will provide full and effective participation of all States Members of the United Nations and States members of specialized agencies.