BITUMEN & ASPHALT
World-renowned road safety campaigner to address SA conference Susanna Zammataro is the director general of the International Road Federation (IRF) in Geneva, Switzerland. She is also a globally recognised expert on road safety and sustainability who is currently leading the IRF in several ambitious projects on the African continent.
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he turns her focus to the southern tip of Africa in September 2021, when she will deliver the keynote address at the inaugural conference of the Society for Asphalt Technology (SAT) – SATBinderrr. “Safe and sustainable mobility on Southern African road networks is the key objective for our industry, so having Susanna on the
platform with us will be a great privilege,” says Herman Marais, president, SAT. “Her passion for the human aspect of roads everywhere is inspiring a new generation of industry leaders around the world and will do the same in South Africa,” Marais adds. Zammataro has been named as one of the 40 Most Remarkable Women in Transport by the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile’s High Level Panel on Road Safety, and chairperson of the Safer Roads and Mobility Pillar of the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration Group. Since its inception, she has been involved in Sustainable Mobility for All – an initiative led by the World Bank that brings 55 top Susanna Zammataro, director general, International Road Federation
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stakeholders from the transport sector around the table.
LEARN Despite comparatively low motorisation levels, Africa has the world’s highest rate of road traffic fatalities. Susanna’s interest in improving road safety in Africa finds expression through several IRF initiatives. One of these, the LEARN project, is a partnership between the IRF and the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety that seeks to enhance the knowledge, skills and actions of road safety professionals and stakeholders through hands-on training. This capacity-building initiative is currently in progress in Cameroon, Kenya, Senegal, Togo, Uganda and Zambia. It involves a series of workshops led by Zammataro, together with Patrick Kinyanjui of the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety, in collaboration with local country coordinators. One of the primary objectives of the LEARN training is to increase awareness of the fundamental role of data in delivering effective solutions. Initiatives targeted at reducing road fatalities need to be supported by up-to-date, precise data to set the right targets as well as to measure and monitor progress and achievements.
