2. The Chair of WP.29, Mr B. Kisulenko (Russian Federation), welcomed delegates to the 179th session of WP.29 and opened the meeting. He recalled the decision of WP.29 at its June 2019 session (ECE/TRANS/WP.29/1147, para. 14) to limit the duration of the 179th session to three days only as a trial to streamline its work.

3. The Director of the ECE Sustainable Transport Division, Mr Yuwei Li, informed WP.29 on the restructuring of the division in order to better address the road safety crisis with globally more than 1.3 million road traffic fatalities per year. The new section on transport of dangerous and road safety management included also oversight of the secretariat of the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety and of the secretariat of the United Nations Road Safety Trust Fund. Mr R. Hubert had been promoted to head of this section.

4. The Director explained that due to budgetary issues, the former post of Mr Hubert as Secretary to GRSG could not be filled immediately. He informed WP.29 participants that the recruitment process had recently been initiated and that a related job-opening would be published in the coming days. He recalled the Secretary-General’s gender strategy and the Executive Secretary’s commitment that aimed at equal distribution of gender at staff of the secretariat, which is not the case for the Division yet. He requested WP.29 delegates to help spreading information on the job-opining to potential candidates and encourage eligible females to apply for the post. He also informed delegates that the Secretary of WP.29 would e-mail the job-opening and the request to help encourage females’ applications.