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.

She 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 stakeholders from the transport sector around the table.

Susanna Zammataro, director general, International Road Federation

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.

Ten Step Plan

Recognising the fact that road infrastructure plays a significant role in influencing the likelihood or severity of a crash, the Ten Step Plan for Safer Road Infrastructure aims to unlock the potential of safer roads to save lives and money, and to achieve UN Global Road Safety Performance Targets.

The project was recently selected by the United Nations Road Safety Fund Steering Committee to be implemented by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in collaboration with a consortium of partners (iRAP, PIARC and TARA) led by the IRF.

In March 2021, Tanzania became the first country in the world to start using the Ten Step Project. This pilot project, led by Zammataro, is designed to build the country’s capacity to improve the safety of road infrastructure.

“The sector has proven that it has the tools to design and build safer roads, but these must be more widely implemented. This is not about telling a government or anyone else what to do. This is about making meaningful decisions that will save millions of lives,” she commented at the launch of the Tanzania project.

Private sector coalitions

The Total Foundation and the IRF are partnering to support the formation of private sector road safety coalitions in a number of countries around the world. The objective is to unite private sector funding and initiatives to work together, in collaboration with international institutions, NGOs and local authorities, to improve road safety via hands-on, impact-oriented and scalable activities and funding.

A first coalition was launched in March 2021 in Tanzania. Others are being formed in Senegal, Pakistan and Morocco, and will be launched by the end of the year.

Covid-19 impact

The IRF and the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety recently published a report funded by the UK-Aid HVT, entitled Covid-19 impact on transport and mobility in Africa – A review of policy and practice in seven African countries.

The report addresses the Covid-19 measures implemented in Cameroon, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda. It provides insights into transport-related restrictions such as those affecting international travel, public transport, and urban and interurban travel. The research assessed the impact of these measures on individual mobility to locations such as public transport stations, workplaces and residential areas.

Detailed case studies were prepared for all seven countries, and key findings and recommendations were presented at a webinar in June 2021.