Ministers join call for Decade of Action

Government ministers from 70 countries gathered in Moscow for the first-ever Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in November and pledged to gear up road safety efforts and formally ask the United Nations to declare 2011-2020 the "Decade of Action for road safety."

Speaking to delegates, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called onthe international community to rally behind the road safety issue with the same urgency with which it addressed the financial crisis.

"It is no less dramatic for our planet than the consequences of the world's recession or food supply security," he said, adding that due to road crashes, every year the equivalent of "a megalopolis disappears from the global map."

The assembled ministers also agreed to back the "Moscow Declaration," which calls on governments and the international community to commit to a wide range of vital road safety actions, from setting ambitious yet realizable goals to mobilising sufficient funds and identifying international donors and partners.

The Declaration also recognized that road safety is a key "cross cutting" issue that impacts directly on economic development and achievement of global Millenium Development Goals. It also recognized that road safety targets cannot be achieved without multisector partnerships between private, government and civil society sectors.

For GRSP, the conference helped cement its reputation as a center of road safety excellence and a catalyst for effective partnerships and projects. It was also a key milestone, a marker event that had been a long-time coming.

"When we started ten years ago, no one would have thought that road safety would become so important at such a high level," noted Samar Abouraad, a senior GRSP advisor and long-time road safety advocate who coordinates the Middle East North Africa Road Safety Partnership. "The presence of the high-level ministers from around the world was impressive."

The strong showing among countries of the Middle East North Africa region and the presentation of the Moscow Declaration at the end of the conference were significant highlights of a meeting that brought together representative from more than 70 countries, Abouraad said. "There was a real sense of achievement and motivation to do something the future," she said.

There was also evidence that national and international leaders are beginning to see the road safety crisis as a humanitarian disaster with a huge impact on health care and economic development - issues that many attendees have been talking about for decades.

"This conference makes it clear that over the past ten years, we have witnessed a truly worldwide recognition of the problem of road traffic crashes that the International Federation described as alarming and global in its World Disasters Report, back in 1999," noted Dr. Vadim Kadyrbaev Vice-President of the Kazakhstan Red Crescent Society.

Dr. Kadyrbaev attended the conference as representative of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). (To see a full article about IFRC activities at the conference, visit the Federation website: http://www.ifrc.org).

The conference was also a chance for road-safetyadvocates to highlight and seek support for their own work, as well as learn from the experiences of others from around the globe. The Sakhalin Road Safety Partnership, GRSP's partner organisation in Russia, was able to communicate its achievements on its four key, interrelated projects (seat-belt wearing, black spot improvement, safe-routes to school, and pre-hospital care) to colleagues across Russia and the world.

For Vietnam, it was a chance to showcase the success of a national helmet programme that has dramatically reduced fatalities in recent years. "For me, the conference was a real success," said GRSP Vietnam country manager Nguyen Lan Huong. "This was the first time ever that very senior ministers and vice ministers from all over world were in the same place. I think they could see the importance of putting more effort into road safety."

"Our vice minister, the head of our delegation from Vietnam, was impressed to see the big picture and to see the commitment from other countries toward road safety," she said. "And the delegation from Vietnam was very proud to have done a good job on helmets. Now they are committed to do even more."

For GRSP, which had a small but very visible booth at a central location, the conference help cement its reputation as a centre of excellence and expertise within IFRC, as a catalyst for effective partnership and as a deliverer of effective, in-country road safety programmes.

David Lewis, Chairman of the GRSP-managed Global Road Safety Initiative took part in a central panel discussion on the role of partnership along with long-time GRSP supporters Datuk Suret Singh, director of Malaysia's road safety deparment, and Marge Peden of the World Health Organization, among others.

GRSP also played a role in some of the top stories at the conference - first with the announcement that it was one of several recipients of a grant from the Michael Bloomberg Philanthropies and secondly, with the launch of phase II of the Global Road Safety Initiative.

In addition, the European Union announced "provisional approval" to Save Our Lives, a 12-city 3.7 million Euro project that connects sustainable mobility and economic development with road safety efforts. GRSP and its in-country partnerships in Poland and Hungary are key grant recipients.

"The conference was a critical milestone in the global recognition of road safety as a crucial economic development issue," said Kathleen Elsig, manager of GRSP's Europe and Central Asia Region. "But we're not there yet. We need to see that kind of rhetoric turned into long-term funding and time allocated to this on the ground, in countries where we are working."

GRSP CEO Andrew Pearce agreed. "Finally, the most important issue - will the conference help save lives on the road? The answer has to be yes if the ministerial conference is followed through with aligned work over the next ten years."