Abstract:
Paper presented at the 23rd Annual Southern African Transport Conference 12 - 15 July 2004 "Getting recognition for the importance of transport", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa. During 2002, the World Bank commissioned CSIR Transportek (together with Africon) and
SITRASS (together with INRETS) from France, to audit the road safety aspects of their
current and planned sector programmes and individual projects in Sub-Sahara Africa. The
main sectors investigated included: Transport, Health, Education and Urban Development.
Interviews were conducted with the World Bank Task Team Leaders in the various sectors.
World Bank Projects were audited, other country documentation investigated, and some
interviews conducted, in the following countries: French speaking: Benin, Burundi,
Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Mail, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Chad, Togo. English speaking:
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania,
Uganda and Zambia.
Findings relate to World Bank internal structures to ensure project follow-up and monitoring
and influencing the content of projects; road safety knowledge and capacity; and channels of
intervention. Findings within the countries comment on the potential of regional
harmonization, road safety management and integrity of governance at country level; road
safety as a health priority; capacity building, technical assistance and training; knowledge
base, community structures; road safety audits; comprehensive transport planning,
comprehensive road safety programmes, infrastructure planning and design, accident and
injury databases and road safety diagnoses; education, driver training and licensing, vehicle
checks, traffic laws and regulation, road safety awareness campaigns and trauma care.
Ten critical goals are identified to ensure that the World Bank integrates road safety in their
Transport, Health, Urban, and Education programmes. The most important goal for the
World Bank is to ensure that their own infrastructure programmes in any sector do not
generate accidents, through conducting the necessary quality assurance audits at different
project levels.
Other goals that may influence project content include the improvement of road safety
management in the countries, attention to injuries as a health problem, improved information
for policy making, implementation and monitoring; evaluation of engineering corrective
measures for especially the non-motorised transport environment, the improvement of road
safety skills and knowledge in Africa, focus on vulnerable road users, focus on public
transport, and interventions aiming at transforming road user behaviour.
