Recently, our friends at La Prevention Routiere Internationale (La PRI) hosted Women and Road Safety: Project for Society on the 8th and 9th March 2014 at tge Palais des Congrès, Skhirat – Rabat. Our CORE Group representative for Europe and leader in road safety, Ms Ana Rita Lavado attended the event and wrote this report for YOURS.
With the frame that every day in Morocco and around the world, many people are killed or injured on the roads and because it was also international women day we started with general discussions about road safety but focusing on the important role of women in road safety.
Road traffic crashes are a major public health problem worldwide, with adverse consequences on economic and social plans. The risk of being killed in a traffic crash varies by age and sex and it is almost three times higher in men than in women. However, according to the World Health Organization, the accidents are among the ten leading causes of death among teenagers and adult women.
Ms Ana Rita Lavado (Left) attends the global road safety conference on women.
In countries with high and middle income, crashes are the leading cause of death among the female population aged 10-44 years. Considering the central and multifaceted role that women play in society and also play as an actor that influence their environment constructively, the National Committee for the Prevention of Traffic Accidents (CNPAC) and the National Union of Women of Morocco (UNFM), co- organized the 1st World Congress on woman and road safety under the theme ” women and road Safety: project for society.”
This congress was under the High Patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, and the Conference was organized under the chairmanship of Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Meryem This event was organized in collaboration with several international organizations, the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Road Safety Organization (PRI), the Laser International Foundation and Laser Europe, the International Transport Forum (ITF) and the International Automobile Federation (FIA).
More than 300 delegates take part in this event.
The event brought together leading decision female decision makers in global road safety.
We had 3 panels where we could discuss several of the main objectives of the congress like
- Panel 1: gendering of public safety policies: international benchmark
- Panel 2: Civil Society, the pillar of road safety
- Panel 3: Road safety, vector for sustainable development
By the end of the last day of work we assisted to the adoption of the “Rabat Declaration” on the woman and road safety and to the presentation of the letter of intent to establish the international Women’s foundation for road safety!
This is the kind of event we should be involved in and for sure I represented the Region of Europe, talking about our CORE Group, YOURS, Our European Youth Forum and of course my work at GARE, as I represent an NGO and a participated, as a speaker, on panel II, where I had the opportunity to talk about our efforts, our lack of governmental support and our importance in the road safety issues. It is important that we each NGO and ambassador for road safety represent road safety on every level of decision making. We are near people, near youngsters, near the real needs of society in terms of Road Safety.
Ana Rita Lavado
CORE Group Representative of Europe Region & coordinator of GARE