IFRC
Our Host Organization
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is one of three components of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement – the world’s largest humanitarian network, providing assistance without discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions.
The other two components are the 190 National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Founded in 1919, the IFRC supports the 190 member Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies, through a secretariat in Geneva and more than 60 delegations around the world.
National Society Engagement
in Road Safety
In 2014 GRSP conducted a mapping project involving 142 National Societies to assess the capacity of National Societies to engage with road safety.
The data presented in this document and in our IFRC engagement interactive map serves to provide the greatest-to-date level of visibility of the scope of work currently being undertaken in this field through the National Society and volunteer networks.
It also serves as both a guide to the potential work that could be instigated, and a conduit for enhanced sharing and communication on matters of road safety between National Societies themselves, and with the Global Road Safety Partnership.
Download our National Society Engagement in Road Safety Report Here
The IFRC and Road Safety
In its 1998 World Disasters Report, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies was one of the first organizations to ring the alarm bell about the catastrophic number of traffic deaths and injuries at the global level, and their dramatic consequences on people and livelihoods.
Following this report, the IFRC, the World Bank and the British Government’s Department for International Development (DFID), decided to create the Global Road Safety Partnership to bring together governments and governmental agencies, the private sector and civil society to urgently address road safety issues, especially in low- and middle-income countries, where 85% of traffic deaths and injuries occur, and where numbers continue to increase.
The Global Road Safety Partnership has become the IFRC’s reference centre on road safety, to facilitate access by all National Societies to road safety global expertise.
National Societies were recognized as key partners in the March 2010 UN Resolution on Road Safety, which proclaims a Decade of Action for Road Safety from 2011 to 2020, and indeed, a 2014 mapping project conducted with 142 National Societies (see above) reported that 70% were engaged in road safety.
A pledge on road safety was presented for signature by National Societies and their respective governments at the 31st International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, held in Geneva from 28 November to 1 December 2011, and was again presented at the General Assembly held in Sydney in November 2013 to look at progress, share succuess stories, discuss challenges and invite more National Societies to do more across the 5 pillars of the Decade of Action for Road Safety.
The pledge supports the implementation of UN Resolution 64/255 on Improving Global Road Safety by committing National Societies and their governments to work together to reduce road crash death and injury, improve road safety through Decade of Action activities and mobilise new resources to implement evidence-based multi-sector programmes. Click here for the pledge (in five languages): Global Road Safety Partnership Open Pledge on Road Safety.
