Event

SaferAfrica Final Conference in Tunis, 18 September

Results and future perspectives for road safety in Africa. Registrations now open!

SaferAfrica Final Conference “Results and future perspectives for road safety in Africa” will take place in Tunis (Tunisia) on 18^th of September. Prominent international institutions, African regional and national bodies’ representatives, policymakers, researchers and civil society organizations will join the dialogue for a better road safety management throughout the Continent.

SaferAfrica is a Horizon 2020 research project with the aim of creating the African-European Dialogue Platform on road safety, to strengthen the cooperation among governments, research institutions and NGOs, coming from the two continents. SaferAfrica supports national and local governments in better understanding of current weaknesses and the country needs in road safety management, by training skilled people and by providing ready to implement projects and examples of international good practices.

The most innovative results of SaferAfrica Project are the African Road Safety Observatory (www.africanroadsafetyobservatory.org ) and the African-European Dialogue Platform on Road Safety which has linked policymakers, donors and professionals engaged in road safety to plan and design road safety actions. At the core of the dialogue, a Management Board composed by high-level members, including ten top-level international Institutions active in the field of road safety, namely: European Commission (EC), World Bank (WB), African Development Bank (AfDB), Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) World Road Association (PIARC), World Health Organization (WHO), International Road Transport Union (IRU) and  International Transport Forum (ITF).

Globally recognized as a crucial development issue for Africa and beyond, road safety is gaining further momentum in the international community. The closing of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011 –2020 is approaching fast and a quest for a new deal is in place. Effectiveness of road safety measures and management is at stake as the number of deaths on the world’s roads remains unacceptably high (1.35 million per year) while the SDG target to halve road traffic deaths by 2020 will not be met, according to the latest WHO figures.

In such a context, Africa results the worst performer on a global scale, registering the highest rates of road traffic death (26.6/100,000 people), the highest proportion of pedestrian and cyclist mortalities (44% of deaths) and huge related human costs. 

Coordinated by the Research Centre for Transport and Logistics of Sapienza, University of Rome (CTL), SaferAfrica counts on a Consortium of 17 partners from both Europe and Africa closely working with more than 200 African stakeholders coming from 41 African countries and in tight connection with the SaferAfrica Management Board.

Besides the African Road Safety Observatory and the Dialogue Platform, major outputs of the project, SaferAfrica has so far produced a huge amount of results, in terms of tools, knowledge, data and recommendations for the African as well as for the international road safety community to be re-used. Capacity reviews, Capacity building, and training programs, Thematic factsheets, Socio – cultural studies, Good practices collection, and analysis are among the major results SaferAfrica Consortium is keen to present and discuss in Tunis, on the 18th of September.

The SaferAfrica Final Conference is meant to be a major occasion to discuss future perspectives of work for the road safety international, regional and national stakeholders, in the framework of the UN Decade for Road Safety, the African Road Safety Action Plan and the newly born Africa-EU Task force on Transport, a joint initiatives between Europe and Africa to share strategies on how to improve road safety in the African Continent.

 Participation in the SaferAfrica Final Conference is free of charge, registration online is required.