Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Transport of India, presided over the IRF side event at the 2nd Global High Level Conference on Road Safety in Brazil
The side event provided information about various tools and ongoing initiatives under Pillar 2 “Safe roads and mobility” of the Decade of Action. Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Transport of India, presided over a very well attended side event.
Gadkari highlighted the importance of addressing the road safety of all road users based on the experience of his own country, India. The side event included presentations from Hilda María Gómez, on the MDB´s Road Safety Initiative and Jose Viégas, secretary general of the International Transport Forum at the OECD (ITF), Roberto Aguerrobere representing PIARC, Kiran K Kapila, chairman IRF and Rob McInerney, CEO of iRAP.
K K Kapila, chairman, IRF appealed to the political leadership and the MDBs to spearhead road safety initiatives in their respective countries. He opined that during funding of new road development works, additionally at least three times the length of existing network should also be identified, for low cost engineering treatments and social engineering of roadside communities.
The most important conclusion of this side event was that in the last few years many debates have been held and tools developed to improve road safety across the world.
It is now time for fast tracking their implementation to achieve desired outcomes, in line with the UN Decade of Action.
