TotalEnergies Foundation supports a 3-year training and certification project for road safety auditors

Though independent road-safety audits are only a strong recommendation at international level, they are now progressively becoming a mandatory feature for many of the projects funded by Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs).

The absence of a clear standard uniformly applied and of an international certification body however has led to the over proliferation of off-the-shelf courses issuing "certificates of competency" in road safety audits even when clearly, they do not meet minimum learning requirements as defined by the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration (UNRSC) group and by many of the Road Safety Audits Manuals of the MDBs.

In the light of this situation, TotalEnergies, as part of its TotalEnergies Foundation program, has decided to provide financial support to a three-year training and certification project for road safety auditors.

The project aims to create an international registry for certified road safety auditors thus helping ensuring greater transparency. By the end of the three-year project, it is expected that some 450 accredited auditors will be recorded in the registry.

The project will first start developing a robust database of certified auditors in three countries - Tanzania, Uganda and India. To achieve this, training courses comprising 10 modules, to be completed in 60 learning hours, will be delivered and participants will have to pass theory and practical exams to obtain their certification. With 20 people being trained in each country every year for the next three years, the project is aiming to train and qualify 180 certified auditors in the three target countries.

The success of this ambitious project should contribute to:

• Increasing transparency and quality in training and accreditation for road safety auditors.
• Providing easy access to a reliable source to identify and select qualified road safety auditors likely to audit road projects financed by MDBs and other stakeholders.
• Opening new opportunities for local engineers in low - or medium - income countries, in particular among young people.
• Helping such countries understand the importance of creating a national accreditation body for road safety auditors.
• Reinforcing advocacy efforts for a more stringent application of requirements with regards to road safety audits.