GRSP Organisation
OverviewSteering and Executive Committee
GRSP Secretariat
Focus Countries
GRSP Members
GRSP Constitution
Overview
The Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP) is a global partnership between business, civil society and governmental organizations collaborating to improve road safety conditions around the world.
Initiated by the World Bank Group in February 1999, GRSP stakeholders have been identifying ways in which they could work together to improve road safety globally. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies hosts the GRSP Secretariat at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The GRSP is governed by a Steering Committee and assisted by a small Secretariat. Over 200 organizations have taken an active role in establishing the GRSP and it is now active in over 10 countries (see GRSP Activities.)
GRSP is one of four Business Partners for Development (BPD) programs initiated by the World Bank. BPD is a project-based initiative that studies, supports and promotes strategic examples of partnerships for the development of communities around the world. The underlying concept of BPD is build on the premise that partnerships benefit the long-term interests of the business sector while meeting the social objectives of communities by helping to create stable social and financial environments.
Road safety offers an opportunity for a wide range of stakeholders to actively engage in addressing the global problem of road accidents, deaths and injuries. Previous efforts by governments and donors to try to improve road safety in developing and transitional countries have had limited success and many interventions simply have not been financially or institutionally sustainable. The Global Road Safety Partnership aims to identify innovative ways to improve road safety by applying the business partnership approach.It hopes to produce solid evidence that partnerships offer win-win benefits for all parties and that this approach can be widely used throughout the world.
The GRSP is not a funding agency and does not finance road safety interventions of the type normally financed by governments, bilateral and multi-lateral donors.
Steering & Executive Committee
The GRSP Steering Committee is comprised of all members of the partnership. It meets annually to elect new Executive Committee members, formally approve accounts, and provide feedback and guidance on planned activities for the coming year.
The Steering Committee elects the Executive Committee from amongst the subscribing members in each of the three sectors of membership. The Executive Committee elects a Chair and Vice-Chair from amongst it’s members to serve a two year term. The Executive Committee meets three times per annum.
The Executive Committee sets the overall policy of the programme, endorses new applications for membership, approves the choice of focus countries, annual budgets and plans, and appoints the GRSP Chief Executive to lead the Secretariat.
GRSP Secretariat
The GRSP Secretariat is accommodated at the headquarters of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Geneva. The Secretariat is lead by the Chief Executive of GSRP, supported by a small in-house team of employees and a number of part-time consultants/advisors who animate the GRSP focus country activities. See current GRSP team.
The Secretariat manages the programme under the guidance of the Executive Committee, the Chair, and the Vice-Chair.
The work in each GRSP focus country is facilitated by an Advisor. He or she may be a member of the Secretariat staff or a part time advisor. In general, there is also a local GRSP coordinator in each focus country, usually part-time. He or she may be funded by one or more of the local partners in the country, or by the Secretariat, or by a combination.
Role of Advisors
The main task of an Advisor is to bring a wide range of road safety stakeholders together to:
- advocate for road safety in the focus countries;
- forge partnerships between relevant government officials, business interests and civil society organisations committed to improving road safety;
- seek agreement on the kind of interventions the partnership is willing to support;
- seek commitment of the time and money needed to implement the chosen partnership programme of projects and other activities;
- monitor implementation of the programme and projects against agreed targets;
- ensure that all parties continue to support the programme; and
- act as a channel of communication between the country team and the Secretariat.
The role of the country coordinator is described under focus countries below.
Focus Countries
GRSP is active in a growing number of countries.
For detailed information of these focus country activities, go to GRSP Activities.
For a list of country contacts for these focus countries, go to GRSP Team/country coordinators.
Before a country can be adopted as a focus country, it must satisfy five basic criteria:
- it must face major road safety problems (measured in terms of number of fatalities per 100,000 vehicles, or similar indicators);
- the government must recognise that road safety is a problem and must be willing to do something about it (e.g. there must be the political will to tackle the problem of road safety);
- the government must have access to the financial resources required to enable it to address those road safety issues, which are the responsibility of government and can only be dealt with by the government (e.g. it must have sufficient domestic resources, or access to suitable donor support);
- there must be some form of road safety action plan in place to provide a framework within which GRSP can operate;
- amongst GRSP partners, there must be considerable interest to be active within the country. Indeed there ought to be GRSP champion (s) who is (are) willing to provide leadership and facilitate the local GRSP network; partners from various sectors must be willing to work together.
Once a country is identified as a possible GRSP candidate, GRSP enters into a non-binding dialogue with country representatives and partner organisations to scope out potential interest. This staged approach is to ensure commitment for all parties. Only when all sides agree there is scope for the partnership approach will GRSP proceed. The next stage is to establish the local partnership and to begin the process of project identification. The GRSP assigns a GRSP advisor, who then becomes responsible for developing and animating a local partnership to tackle the local road safety problems. The partnership comprises local business interests, civil society organisations and government. It normally includes some of GRSP’s main partners, but will also include other organisations that are not members of the GRSP international Steering Committee.
It has proven to be the case that the country partners move to a more formal organisation. This has lead to the establishment of non-governmental GRSP organisations in most of the focus countries. The precise local format depends on national legislation and members’ wishes. Examples are given in the country pages.
Such organisations are powerful evidence of the commitment of the members with the local partnership, and a step along the path to a sustainable operation in the country.
GRSP Members
The Global Road Safety Partnership is a voluntary association between members, who share a common interest in road safety and are committed to improving it. It is based on the core principles of transparency, sustainable development, and mutual benefit. It works by consensus and all members accept a responsibility for supporting the programme and acknowledge the contributions made by the other members. The partnership includes a wide range of members, defined in the GRSP constitution
- Corporate members who each pay an annual cash subscription of at least CHF 75,000. They may also share the cost of advisers, for example by secondment. Corporate members consist of large commercial enterprises with either direct or indirect interests in road safety. They are actively involved in supporting focus projects, either directly or through their local subsidiaries in focus countries.
- Non-corporate members who each pay an annual cash subscription of at least CHF 15,000. These members consist of ‘not for profit’ organisations (e.g. research organisations and trade associations). They are less involved with focus projects, but contribute knowledge and ideas.
- Multilateral and bilateral members who pay an annual cash subscription of CHF 75,000 or provide substantial support to the GRSP programme of equivalent value in other ways (e.g. by way of grants, staff secondments, or hosting arrangements). These include government departments whose remit permits them to participate in international programmes. They are generally active in financing road safety projects forming part of larger donor-financed projects. The GRSP Executive Committee will decide on a case by case basis which organisations not making a cash contribution fall into this category by providing ‘substantial support’ in other ways.
- Advisory and supporting members who pay no annual subscription and are not normally actively involved in focus projects. They are usually invited to become members by the Steering Committee because:
- they are actively engaged in road safety activities which complement GRSP activities in some way (e.g., United Nations organisations);
- they represent specific aspects of the public interest involved in road safety (such members may include the medical profession, police and emergency medical services) and to contribute knowledge and ideas; and
- they are able to comment and advise on the programme, to contribute ideas and provide quality control. Such members include NGOs and various specialist committees of international bodies.
- Honorary members. These members include some founding members, who helped to establish the programme, together with all former chairmen.
Representatives of the above-mentioned organisations constitute the membership of the GRSP Steering Committee.
All subscribing GRSP members are active in some of the focus countries, either through their headquarters, or by way of local subsidiaries or associations. Local partners are not necessarily members of the Steering Committee. GRSP policy is to involve its main partners in as many focus countries as possible and to encourage local partners – particularly those supporting the programme in several countries – to join the Steering Committee.
To become a GRSP Member:
Any new organisation wishing to join GRSP may be invited to attend the next annual Steering Committee meeting as an observer. If the organisation then decides to join GRSP, a note to this effect is circulated to all Steering Committee members, who are invited to endorse the application before it is formalised. Any objections to a potential member are determined by the Executive Committee.