Background Marking of the global and sub-regional road safety events at the national level is one of the recommendations of the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011–2020 to increase the awareness of risk factors and the need for enhanced road traffic injury prevention. Examples of the Global events are the United Nations Global Road Safety Weeks and the World Remembrance Day for Road Traffic Victims and Sub-regional road safety event are the Gulf Countries Corporation Traffic Weeks held every year during March.

Objective To examine the implication of marking the global and sub-regional road safety events during 2015 on the road safety awareness agenda in Qatar.

Results The World Remembrance Day for Road Victims was marked in Qatar in the 3rd Sunday of November 2014 by multiple national sectors and demonstrated commitment. Following the event, an in-depth evaluation of the stakeholders needs was done by the awareness section of the Traffic Department and Hamad Injury Prevention Program- Trauma Surgery, Hamad General Hospital and concluded that road safety awareness require a systematic and multi-sectoral collaborative approach . This internal evaluation resulted into a substantial improvement of the collaboration between both sectors, starting from the participation in the 31^st Gulf Countries Corporation Traffic Week in March 2015 with several participatory activities by Hamad Injury Prevention Program. Another internal evaluation was conducted following the Gulf Traffic Week to identify progress and needed actions. In May 2015, a more collaborative activity for the 3^rd United Nations Global Road Safety Week with emphasised planning using the recommendations of the former events and with involving more sectors such as the Supreme Council of Education and Non-Governmental Organisations. The evaluation of the global event acknowledged that the quality and efficiency of the awareness activities in Qatar was improved by multi-sectoral collaboration and recommended joint planned awareness activities on routine basis.

Conclusions Marking the Global and Sub-regional road safety events emphasised the positive impact of the multi-sectoral collaboration in a systematic way to improve the road safety awareness and guided the national stakeholders in Qatar for future and directed collaborative activities.