DRSC News
Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety
From 18-20 February Delft Road Safety Courses joined the Fourth Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in Marrakech. The conference was organised by the Kingdom of Morocco in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a platform to exchange expertise and experiences in the field of road safety, as well as an opportunity for all countries, especially developing and emerging countries, to benefit from road safety trends, plans and action programmes.
At DRSC we were grateful to use the opportunity to connect with our alumni and meet with stakeholders, friends, and partners from around the world – including celebrating our new partnership with VIA Road Safety Software who will be sponsoring our upcoming course.
Alumni networking
On 18 February, before the official opening, we gathered our alumni for a networking breakfast to catch up and share our hopes and expectations of the conference in Morocco. This was an excellent event attended by over 50 DRSC alumni from as far back as 2012. We heard from our new Chair Henk Stipdonk and esteemed DRSC lecturer Fred Wegman as well as Director Teije Gorris on the plans for DRSC and our aims to bring alumni together more often. Thank you to Dutch (Stichting) Road Safety Fund for supporting this initiative.
Throughout the week we also sought out our alumni to catch up on their career highlights and celebrate their achievements. We were delighted that several of our alumni were up for awards as part of the Road Safety Film Festival, including Karina Muñoz Matus from Chile and Tatiana Mihailova from Moldova, along with Bright Oywaya from Kenya who was the advocacy coordinator behind the awards.
Conference sessions and side events
Over the course of the Conference, Teije, Henk, and other DRSC Board members and lecturers took part in numerous parallel sessions and side events, covering issues from active mobility to Safe System adaptation.
Teije took to the stage during the official parallel session on ‘Safer Urban Streets for Active Mobility and Multimodal Transport’ hosted by Walk21. Also on the panel was Geertje Hegeman, Head of Road Safety at the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. They both spoke about the Netherlands’ story and shared how they have successfully applied the safe system approach to active mobility in support of all road users – a lesson that is shared via our Annual Course for Low and Middle Income Countries.
This theme was covered again by Teije and Board member Martin Damen at a panel session organised by local NGO, Pikala Bikes. This session was a highlight of the week, bringing together Marrakech’s youth with the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety and the ACTIVE Capacity Building Initiative to bridge the gaps between what young people want for the city and road safety.
At the same time, Henk Stipdonk (as a key developer) was central to the launch of the new ITF – International Transport Forum Safe System Tool: a user friendly interface to visualise the building blocks of the Safe System and how they fit together.
On the final day, two of our lecturers Emma MacLennan and Dr Geetam Tiwari featured in the panel on Leveraging Data for Road Safety: an interesting and insightful discussion with a lot of useful information and take aways that they audience could practically draw on.
Roundup
Overall the Conference was hugely inspiring and interesting, dictating the future of road safety. The concluding Marrakesh Declaration urged Member States to accelerate efforts to implement the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021–2030 and to support low-income countries, particularly in Africa, in integrating road safety into their policies and ensuring knowledge sharing and capacity building. DRSC stands ready to offer our support and expertise to help make all the commitments made during the conference become a reality.
