​Today we are celebrating International Women’s Day 2023. The theme this year is #EmbraceEquity. The aim of the IWD 2023 #EmbraceEquity campaign theme is to get the world talking about Why equal opportunities aren’t enough. People start from different places, so true inclusion and belonging require equitable action.

Gender inequity in transport remains one of the key challenges to ensuring a safer and more equitable future for our children, and as such, we need to do something about it.

iRAP’s road safety assessment method, which gives a road a safety Star Rating, aims to address infrastructure-related risk by giving roads individual Star Ratings for four road user groups—pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and vehicle occupants. This method, which has now been used in over 100 countries, makes it very hard to ignore the safety of other road user groups in the design of our roads and streets.

iRAP’s method uses a data driven approach to assess the safety of road users. But like anything that relies on data, it is essential we look at this from a gender perspective to better understand the safety of transport for the modes women use. To find out more about how iRAP is using its data to better understand safety for women’s mobility, see our blog post written by Monica Olyslagers – iRAP’s Global Innovation Manager and Cities Specialist.

iRAP’s Training and Accreditation Programme continues to #embraceequity – building capacity around the world

Last year we were incredibly proud to announce 30 recipients for the iRAP International Women in Engineering Day Grant from 19 countries, including Thailand, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, India, Philippines, Kenya, Australia, Colombia, Malaysia, Ecuador, Slovak Republic, Cameroon, Romania, South Africa, Peru, Tunisia, Bangladesh and El Salvador.

Some of the highlights nominated by the successful recipients on how they intend to use their knowledge include:

• To use the iRAP methodology to assess the safety of roads and incorporate safety measures in the design phase in Kenya.
• To evaluate roads in the city of Quito (Ecuador).
• To prioritise investments in India.
• To assess roads in Thailand and Laos.
• To make the roads of El Salvador safer and diminish the awful accidents that happen every day. With this knowledge, I would be able to assist my company more effectively in new road projects that require iRAP’s star rating system.
• To integrate the proper and appropriate road safety measures that will surely address the safety and mobility problems in the Philippines’ national road network.
• To give me the opportunity to develop more comprehensive advocacy work to create safer streets for children in particular (South Africa).

Read more here

Of those who were successful recipients of the IWED 2022 Grants, 55% have already completed their training in the Star Rating Essentials and Start Rating for Designs courses (since August 2022).

Over 56% of those who completed the courses and chose to obtain accreditation have either received iRAP accreditation already or are in the process of doing so.

2022 was our second year of offering the IWED grants – we will continue to work with past and present recipients to encourage training and accreditation and identify what hurdles they may face to continue building capacity. Collectively we can all #EmbraceEquity.

See how we have celebrated International Women’s Day in previous years below.