Bilateral Meeting with the Ministry of Transport, Indonesia

31 May 2023, Indonesia - Youth Leadership Board member Estiara Ellizar and YOURS - Youth for Road Safety Advocacy team Stefania Minniti and Sana’a Khasawneh attended a bilateral meeting with official representatives from the Ministry of Transportation in Indonesia. Representatives from the Office of the Transport Policy Agency and the Directorate of Land Transport Means were also present.

The Local Action Winners of the Global Youth Coalition from Indonesia were represented by Vania Emmanuela, Laudza Nurfauziah Suryanegara, Sukma Larastiti, and Agita Pasaribu. Their road safety projects were implemented in different cities across the country.

The Local Action winners shared their projects with the Ministry of Transport, saying they were thankful for the opportunity to help their community. They also raised how difficult it was to reach the national government to talk about their ideas so they expressed how important the meeting was.

The aim of the meeting was to facilitate an exchange of knowledge and experiences around the work of YOURS and the Global Youth Coalition, with a focus on how the two organizations work to empower youth across the globe to promote road safety and achieve meaningful participation in spaces where decisions that impact their lives are made.

During the meeting, Estiara talked about her road safety and advocacy journey, emphasizing how the Youth Coalition helped her grow as a youth leader.

The meeting was an opportunity to establish the importance of intergenerational co-leadership and dialogue between young leaders and the authorities.  The goal was to create a partnership between young people and the Ministry of Transport so that a sustainable mechanism is put in place to meaningfully involve youth and integrate their voices into the National Road Safety Policy. 

YOURS also shared its Policymaker's Toolkit and Policy Briefs on Road Safety and SDGs, highlighting the organization's collaborations with national governments in different countries. 

Indonesia is considered a ‘priority country’ because of its leaders’ political will and interests to meaningfully engage and involve youth in the road safety field. A significant number of Youth Coalition Members also reside in Indonesia, as highlighted by the number of road safety projects being funded through the Local Actions.

The meeting resulted in two things;  the future involvement of Local Actions winners in the upcoming National Campaign for Road Safety happening this August and an open invitation for young people in Indonesia to join the Youth Advocate Session that the Global Youth Coalition is organizing later in the year.

“In Indonesia, there are many young people who care about road safety issues, especially underage driving. But so far youths have only been able to take small steps. With intergenerational conversation, we hope that these small steps can be seen by the government and society so they can help us to create a massive and useful step together” - Nikita Luthfi Adriyana

YOURS Advocacy Director Stefania Minniti shares, “We are very grateful for the opening and inspiring session with MoT from Indonesia, and we hope that more national agencies from the road safety field will follow their example. It’s not always easy to open the door for young people and promote a systematic way to be meaningfully engaged in the policymaking process, so whenever we take steps toward this, we are already helping achieve targets of the Global Plan for Decade of Action for Road Safety. We are looking forward to more engagement opportunities with policymakers worldwide.”

”We at MoT really appreciate this opportunity to talk with YOURS, and we are also doing a massive road safety campaign in Indonesia, especially for young people starting from Kindergarten school. Moreover, we also have an annual program for Student Road Safety Ambassadors we asked them to write a scientific writing/journal to implement their idea, which is aligned with  some of the actions promoted by YOURS"  - Mr. Iwan Budi, Head of the Sub directorate for Road Safety Promotion and Partnership