On 30-31 January 2024, UIC Director General François Davenne, together with Philippe Lorand, UIC Director of Institutional Relations and Asia-Pacific Coordinator, and Joo Hyun Ha, UIC Sustainability Strategy & International Partnerships Senior Advisor, attended the 2024 International Transport Forum (ITF) Consultation meetings on Gender, ITF Research programmes, and the ITF Summit 2024-2025.

These events brought together international organisations to provide input and serve as a forum to exchange ideas on the 2024 ITF Summit “Greening Transport: Keeping Focus in Times of Crises”. UIC presented key activities on gender equality, through the Train 2B Equal project, as well as key advocacy activities on Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and climate finance, including the study on “Bridging the Rail Finance Gap: challenges and opportunities for LMICs” launched at COP28 in December 2023.

Davenne highlighted the need for a paradigm shift, driven by an increased transport share for active mobility and public transport to advance the sector’s decarbonisation, as well as how climate finance can be used to fund such a modal shift. CER, ERA and EU-RAIL were also at the meeting, showing a great breadth of representation from the rail sector.