Road safety NGOs from around the world have come together in El Salvador for the Eighth Global Meeting of Non-Governmental Organizations Advocating for Road Safety and Road Victims. Lotte Brondum, Executive Director of the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety says, “It is the role of governments to keep its people safe. Road safety NGO’s role in building governments to account for safe roads.” The event takes place from the 6th to the 10th of March 2023.
This year’s Global Meeting theme is “Rethink Road Safety: Mobility for People and Planet”. It is hosted by the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety with the International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) and is co-hosted by the Vice Ministry of Transport of El Salvador and the World Health Organization. The meeting will be a hybrid event, with member organizations able to attend live and online.
The event will feature different opportunities for capacity building. It will allow different road safety organizations to network and participate in high-level symposiums and multi-lateral discussions. The iRAP shares that “the interconnections between road safety, safe mobility, and other key global challenges addressed by the SDGs will be explored, with a focus on accountability for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030.”
The first day of the Meeting saw the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety Latin America Chapter coming together to discuss strategies on how to continue to foster the development of a unified regional voice and vision to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries. Other Chapters also came together to discuss the relevant regional issues.
The second day will allow participants to take part in different road safety workshops. The topics include; creating an environment to enable NGOs, bridging knowledge and action for road safety, a modal shift in transportation and mobility, capacity building clinics, mandatory insurance, #Love30 for people and planet, victim-centered post-crash intervention, safe and affordable helmets, and financing road safety.
The succeeding days will be filled with sessions by different road safety experts where they will tackle evidence-based road safety solutions, the Sustainable Development Goals, the UN Global Road Safety Week, the Alliance Accountability Toolkit, and more.
“The Global Meeting is the primary NGO-led road safety and safe mobility gathering globally. This is where we mobilize together shoulder-to-shoulder with the global road safety community to trigger stronger action to reduce road deaths by 50% by 2030 and call for action to guarantee that every person has the right to safe, affordable, accessible, and sustainable mobility,” – Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety
Online registration for the Meeting is open.