Africa's Roads Given a Boost at Regional Conference
Africa poses unique challenges for the provision and preservation of roads and road transport. To address some of these challenges, the South African Road Federation (SARF) in association with the International Road Federation (IRF Global) and the World Roads Association (PIARC), hosted the Regional Conference for Africa "Roads to Social and Economic Growth" in Durban from 9 to 11 October 2018.
The conference gathered 73 high-level speakers and hundreds of delegates at the Durban Convention Center, The adjoining exhibition saw 24 Organisations and companies share their road related goods and services with the conference delegates. This became the meeting place for everyone who attended the conference and high-level networking took place here before, during and even after the day’ s activities.
The three parallel technical streams were chaired by 15 young, dynamic session chairs. A Young Professionals session was held on 10 October and was very well supported by the conference delegates. The Conference also included a workshop "Work Zones Can and Must be Safer in South Afric" on 11 October that was presented by the Executive Vice President on the International Road Federation Mike Dreznes who shared his many years of experience. Dreznes noted "Africa must stop “doing things the way they have always done them if they want to meet the Decade of Action’s Challenge to reduce fatalities by 2020".
Dreznes also presented two International Road Safety Audit Team Leader awards to Iris Wink (pictured) and Riaan Steenkamp, as well as the 2019 IRF "Find-A-Way" Global Road Safety Award to His Excellency Akinwunmi Ambode, Governor, Lagos State, Nigeria.
Patrick Bekoe, Regional Manager for IRF Global, made a presentation to introduce Output and Performance Based Contracts on Africa's road netorks.
“This conference has become the flagship event for road infrastructure in Southern Africa and in 2018 it was further enhanced by the participation of the IRF and PIARC,” said Saied Solomon, SARF president and chairman of the conference organizing committee.