It was an exciting day in Washington, D.C. as more than 100 global leaders from the transport sector gathered together on January 15 to call for action toward Sustainable Mobility for All.
Makhtar Diop, Vice President for Infrastructure for the World Bank opened-up the Consortium Meeting by announcing that South Africa will be the first country to pilot the Global Roadmap of Action Toward Sustainable Mobility (GRA). Launched on October of 2019, the GRA proposes a coherent and integrated menu of policy actions to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and achieve the four policy goals that define sustainable mobility: universal access, efficiency, safety, and green mobility.
“The GRA [sets] the standards and the measures on how sustainable mobility looks like,” said Boitumelo Mosako, Chief Financial officer and Executive Director of the Development Bank of Southern Africa. “The opportunity we see with the GRA is that the assessment has more or less told us where we are as a country, and now is about us being able to look at our plan as a nation [and] reprioritize.” Ms. Mosako also highlighted South Africa’s focus on efficient and accessible transport for its citizens.
“This 8th Consortium Meeting opens a new chapter for SuM4All with a focus on putting the GRA in Action for 2020,” said Guangzhe Chen, Global Director for Transport and Regional Director for Infrastructure in South Asia for the World Bank. Mr. Chen also emphasized the importance of bringing together all SuM4All’s partners including MDB representatives, private sector stakeholders, and new external experts to generate insights and collaboration to facilitate a truly actionable GRA in 2020 and beyond.
The event covered crucial topics including financing for action in cities; private sector commitments on road safety in the run up to the 3rd Ministerial Conference on Road Safety; country perspectives on transport sustainability; and, most importantly, the launch of five new GRA workstreams.
These five workstreams respond to the urgency we now face to focus on the implementation of the GRA and seeks to influence country and city decision-makers to make the right investment and policy choices. They cover topics such as: enabling data sharing for sustainable urban mobility; sustainability of the e-mobility model; the transport energy nexus; gender data; and finally, piloting the GRA.
As part of the Consortium Meeting, breakout sessions took place among attendees to express their interest in one or more workstreams based on their knowledge and expertise. Every working group had the opportunity to comment about the workstream’s terms of reference including the objectives and potential outcomes. To get the plan moving, each individual working group agreed to publish one or more output by the end of 2020.
With South Africa becoming the first country to implement the GRA, the bar is high for other countries who can’t no longer say there is no pathway to supporting the Sustainable Development Goals. Public transport can be a sustainable option for mobility, providing access to opportunities and generating direct benefits to people, businesses, the environment, and the overall economy. “We need to think on what action means and in what angle we would like to act to be able to trigger sustainable mobility at all levels,” said Maruxa Cardama, Secretary General of SloCaT.
Towards the end of the Meeting, an important call was made for the private and public sector to work together to build capacity, knowledge and expertise for SuM4All’s global objectives. “As I sit here, I represent the action and that is exactly what we are going to be doing in 2020. You have worked in the last few years with a vision for SuM4All and we are the beneficiaries, and I have really seen this become [something much] bigger,” concluded Ms. Mosako.
Following the Consortium Meeting, Ethiopia announced that they will also pilot the GRA; setting a huge milestone for SuM4All and for other countries to use this framework to guide their policies and transform the future of mobility.
By: Alejandra Gutierrez
