GRSP extends Hosting Agreement with IFRC through to 2020

The Global Road Safety Partnership’s (GRSP) Hosting Agreement with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is a crucial legal arrangement which gives GRSP its status as an auxilliary to government, and with that, access to decision and policy makers within the field of road safety around the world.

In the evolution of the relationship with the IFRC, an important milestone was reached this month, with Mr Bekele Geleta, Secretary General of the IFRC, (pictured) signing the extension of the Hosting Agreement through to 2020.

Dr Jean Yves le Coz, GRSP Chairman said of the signing, “This is a landmark agreement and one which will allow GRSP to set mid- and long-term goals for enhanced engagement with National Societies, and for our collaborative work with them in implementing front line, good practice road safety activities”.

GRSP works in partnership with Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies on a range of advocacy and capacity building initiatives in many low- and middle-income countries in which GRSP is active.

• Work undertaken in relation to helmet wearing rates in Cambodia and Lao PDR has delivered positive outcomes in terms of improved laws, enhanced enforcement and greater community understanding and adherence.
• Working with the Russian Red Cross under a ‘Train the Trainer’ principle, GRSP helped build a team of traffic enforcement trainers who are currently passing the knowledge through the ranks.
  To help build long-term sustainability for road safety advocacy work, GRSP collaborated with the IFRC to produce a road safety advocacy training guide.
• GRSP has also recently completed a mapping excercise of 52 European National Societies to help understand their road safety capabilities and identify opportunities for collaboration in the future.

As the IFRC’s resource centre for road safety, GRSP facilitates access for National Societies to global road safety expertise, and in return, GRSP can leverage on the reach of a humanitarian network of 187 National Societies and some 13 million active volunteers committed to ‘saving lives, changing minds’.