As part of the 5^th Global Meeting of the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; the second day of pre-meeting workshops took place on the 4^th April. For our second involvement in the workshops, we joined with the leaders of the workshop, the Asian Development Bank, to build capacity on youth participation in road safety.  The workshop heard multitude ideas of how youth can drive change for road safety across Asia and the world and encouraged ‘meaningful participation’ in road safety.

About Youth for Asia
ADB has embraced the vital role that civil society participation plays in the fight against poverty in the region. From planning and design consultations to project implementation and monitoring, civil society’s participation results in more effective and sustainable development efforts.

Because youth and youth-led organizations are important members of civil society, ADB started the Youth Initiative – now called ADB Youth for Asia – in 2013, to support young people in contributing effectively to development. It is a program managed by ADB’s NGO and Civil Society Center to mainstream youth participation in ADB operations as it believes that empowered youth are innovative and effective development.

Key aims of the workshop session included a need:

• To raise awareness of the importance of meaningful youth participation in design, implementation, and evaluation in road safety campaigns and achievement of the road safety-related SDG targets;

• To highlight the work and experiences of YOURS (global perspective) and ADB Youth for Asia (focus on Asia Pacific – examples of ADB projects in Mongolia and Tajikistan) in working with Youth in Road Safety;

• To have international NGOs present from other continents share their perspectives, experiences and ideas for engaging youth in road safety campaigns for advocacy, seatbelt use, helmet use, speeding, drink driving, safer vehicle, post-crash response, etc. These outputs will be collated by Youth for Asia to be integrated in the design of ADB operations in road safety;
• To allow the platform to connect with active road safety NGOs from Asia and the Pacific and other regions.
• To provide access to YOURS and Youth for Asia materials and toolkits to further engage youth in road safety activities in member NGO countries.

Participants heard real examples of how youth can actively engage in road safety to build change amongst their peers; both by providing youth with skills to help them be safer road users and by taking an active role in road safety decision making as equal players. Lee Lambert of concrete examples of ADB projects working with youth in Tajikistan and Mongolia.

The above presentation (Prezi), delivered by Manpreet Darroch from YOURS focused on the importance of youth participation in road safety that is meaningful and acted upon. He said,

“Many organizations work for youth as beneficiaries but working WITH youth creates projects and interventions that are creative, responsive, innovative and senstive to the language and realities of youth, they are often best equipped to tell you what will work in terms of engaging youth in road safety”

Facilitators for the session were:

• Lee Michael Lambert
  Youth Project Designer for Asian Development Bank – Youth for Asia
• Manpreet Darroch
  Communications Officer, Coordinator of the Global Youth Network for Road Safety – YOURS – Youth for Road Safety
• Floor Lieshout
  Exective Director, YOURS – Youth for Road Safety

The Fifth Global Meeting of the Global Alliance of NGOS for road safety kicked off in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on the 3^rd April 2017. As part of the Alliance’s continued empowerment efforts, a number of pre-meeting workshops were organized to give members unique insights into a range of road safety topics. One session that we participated in focused on how NGOs can engage with multi-lateral banks, to obtain support and buy in and partner with these financial institutions for development and social change in road safety.

Focus themes included:

• What is the role of multilateral banks in road safety?
• What  do Multilateral banks fund and how are the channelled?
• How can NGOs best support the work funded by multilateral banks?
• What advice do multilateral banks have to give NGOs?

Speakers included:

• Marc Shotten, Global Road Safety Facility, World Bank
• Holly Kranbec, World Bank, Asia division
• Lee Lambert, Asia Development Bank
• Betty Omoro, Safe Drivers, Kenya
• Bright Oywaya, Asirt-Kenya
• Manpreet Darroch, YOURS

Concrete examples of projects funded by the Asian Development Bank and World Bank Asia Division were projects with evidence based approaches, scalability and sustainability.

Marc Shotten of the Global Road Safety Facility at the World Bank noted that, “NGOs that speak in terms of the global sustainable development agenda are more likely to be successful in working with multi-lateral banks”.

He also noted that, “Often multi-lateral banks seem impenetrable but they do offer millions in development assistance with NGOs helping to design and deliver key programmes…the key is to be persistent and keep knocking the door”.

Lee Lambert from the Asian Development gave key examples of how they are specifically working with young people in several countries. To mainstream youth involvement in ADB operations, ADB Youth for Asia connects with various ADB departments to include youth participation in the different stages of project development. ADB Youth for Asia facilitates youth engagement in projects’ planning, design, consultation, and implementation.

As part of the example showcase of successful NGO partnership with multi-lateral banks, our Communications Officer, Manpreet Darroch presented on our successful partnership with the Caribbean Development Bank. The presentation focused on how YOURS, as a NGO specialized in workshop education with youth formed part of the ‘educational element’ of a wider infrastructure program in Belize.

Read Manpreet’s presentation here. 
The event has been followed through social media with the hashtag #GlobalMeeting17.

Shotgun uses GPS to track each car journey you make for 1,000 miles. The app then scores the different elements of your driving and dishes out points based on your overall performance. Collecting these points unlocks different reward levels, earning you things like vouchers and free cinema tickets. You’ll also be given pointers along the way, giving you the tools to improve and win even more.

You can even compare your score with friends on the leaderboard for extra bragging rights.

1.5% of all drivers are 17-19 years old, yet they’re involved in 9% of all fatal or serious crashes

The app uses GPS technology to monitor new drivers first 1000 miles on the road and scores them on various elements. They are then rewarded with giveaways and experiences from well known high street brands such as Virgin Experience Days, Pizza Express and BoostJuice.

Encouraging young people to drive safely through rewards is a clever way to promote safe driving. This trend has been popular in other countries too, with youth being rewarded for safer driving with lower insurance rates through blackbox technology.

Alongside safe driving for physical rewards, it remains important for young peope to understand the benefits of safe driving for safey’s sake; being a safer driver means making the road safer for everyone.

What’s your view on this type of road safety promotion?

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